Cicerology
by WonderfulNonsenseofBritt
Summary: Cicero, trapped in the real world, seeks help from an indifferent psychologist who is thoroughly bored with her life.
1. Chapter 1

There he stood. Cicero. Dr. Clarice Stoker knew who he was. He was her new patient, that much was a given. However, Wanda, a doctor friend of hers, who had an acquaintance who was a therapist, gave Dr. Stoker a much more in-depth perspective on this strange man.

First of all, the therapist had said, he had been bouncing from councillor to therapist to psychologist, searching for some sort of help for his obviously insane nature. Second of all, he refused to see a psychiatrist, for fear that any sort of medication they could give him was actually poison, and they were trying to kill him (which sounded like a typical paranoid schizophrenic). Finally, and most importantly, he had an unnatural obsession with his mother, along with constantly referring himself in the third person (which also sounded like your typical lunatic). This lunatic would be a far cry from her usual patients, who mostly came to see her just because they liked to hear themselves talk.

As she progressed down the hallway, her heeled shoes making muffled clicks upon the old carpet, the crazed man quickly looked up and stood to his feet. In the darkened hallway, she could only make out few features of him: his nose in the fluorescent lighting, his incredibly dark eyes hidden in shadow, the sly, devilish grin. She stopped in front of him, mostly because he was standing in front of the locked door of her office.

"Ooooh!" Cicero said, excitedly. "You must be Dr. Stoker!"

"Yes," Dr. Stoker said, fumbling through her purse for her keys. "You are-"

"Cicero is at your service, oh great and powerful Doctor," the lunatic grinned. "I say great, because you are wonderful, and powerful, because you may have the power to fix poor Cicero."

"You have the power to fix yourself, Cicero," Dr. Stoker said, finding her keys, and turning to the door. "So how are you today?"

"Oh, Cicero is always feeling the same way," Cicero said. The doctor turned and regarded him. His grin was devilish and somewhat conniving. He stretched his arms out to his sides and shrugged. "Mad!"

Dr. Stoker said nothing, and inserted the key into the keyhole. To her surprise, Cicero bent down beside the door, and pressed his ear against the frame, closing one eye, and widening the other. She watched him, pausing in her motion. When, after a few moments, he remained completely still, she maintained her well-practised objectivity by not allowing a single emotion to befall her face, and turned the key. As she did so, Cicero's one eye widened, as did his grin, as though the sound of the tumbler turning, the creaking of metal upon metal, the clicking of the unlocking deadbolt, was considerably rapturous. When she turned the handle itself, he removed his head and stood up straight.

In the corner of Dr. Stoker's eyes she saw him watching her, pure excitement filling those incredibly deep, dark eyes. The world around her seemed to turn to dark as he stood uncomfortably close to him. His eyes bore, like vampire teeth, into her skin as she pressed herself against the door to open it. The entire hallway seemed to fill with a tension that was like a thick liquid, cold and warm at the same time, filling her lungs, suffocating her with dark apprehension which flowed through his eyes and grin. She panicked as she pressed her body violently against the door, until it gave way against her weight.

Once the light from the massive windows in her office fell upon her, the thick tension left the room, leaving her to breathe again. She moved towards her desk, breathing heavily, allowing the liquid to leave her lungs. She turned back, and opened the curtains fully, allowing the bright daylight to pour into the room, and fall upon them both. She unlocked her desk drawer and removed her clipboard, papers already placed under the clip, prepared to scribble innumerable notes about this new patient. On the top of the paper, she wrote Cicero's name, and what she already knew of him: obsession with mother, refers to himself in third person, knows very well of his madness…etc.

"Please," she said to him. "Have a seat."

"Yes, Doctor," Cicero said, excitedly. "Cicero will lie back on the couch while Freud flows through you and examines him! If you open your mouth wide enough, can you see Silly Sigmund's eyes?"

Dr. Stoker said nothing, and finished scribbling upon the paper, while idly walking towards the door. She closed the door, closing both into the room together – a madman and a defenseless Doctor. She glanced up from her notes, and regarded him carefully. With the fresh, morning light shining through the large windows, she could see him in a better light. His eyes were much lighter than she had originally anticipated. They were sort of a light brown, clear, focused. This was frightening, considering how insane he truly was – if he as so mad, how could he be so clear?

He had red hair – unnaturally red. It was so red that it looked dyed (the colour of blood), though it wasn't. It was pulled back off of his face, though loose in the back. His face was incredibly dented with extreme laugh lines, and beside those focused eyes, there were thin, shallow crow's feet. This was interesting, considering how it suggested that he always laughed with his mouth, but never with his eyes – the laughter of a lunatic. He didn't look much older than his early fourties; short, though built; full, though dry lips; pale; handsome. Yes, he was handsome.

She jotted these down into her notes.

She sat down in a comfortable chair across from the couch in which Cicero laid. When she sat down, he exuberantly held his arms back, stretched one leg out, and looked up to the ceiling, sighing heavily.

"So what did you want to hear first, Doc?" he said. "My horrible childhood? My unnatural closeness to my first cousin? My alcoholic father beating me? My latent schizophrenic tendencies? …My mother?"

"No, Cicero, I think we'll just start with something a little bit easier," she replied. "Like what you are thinking right now."

"Oh, oh!" Cicero exclaimed. "Could we look at those Rorschach ink blots? Cicero loves those! You want to know what he sees? Blood! Blood stains! Blood streaks! Blood droplets! The great inkpot massacre!"

"Cicero, how about you just lay back and relax, close your eyes, and tell me how you are feeling today," Dr. Stoker replied, slightly frustrated, but years of training have taught her not to show it.

"As you wish, Doc," Cicero replied. He laid both his legs out flat in front of himself, lied back onto the couch, tilted his head back slightly, and closed his eyes. "Cicero is feeling… No, Cicero is hearing. He is hearing laughter. Constant laughing. No voices. No, poor Cicero is not allowed to hear the voices. Just laughing. He sees the jester. The jester is laughing. Ha ha ha! He he he! Ho ho ho! The jester laughs… Until he doesn't."

The psychologist sat across from him, watching him. She kept her eyes on his face. It twitched slightly as he thought about this… laughing. She wasn't sure what exactly he meant by the laughing, and the jester. It probably has something to do with his lunatic tendencies, maybe even schizophrenia. Perhaps this jester was some sort of manifestation of his subconscious insanities, and the laughing perhaps had something to do with a repression of a memory of being bullied – or maybe it wasn't repressed at all.

"Do these thoughts of laughing and of a jester bother you, Cicero?" she asked. Going through the movements.

Cicero opened his eyes and turned his head to look at the doctor. His eyes were wide and wandering, and his mouth was closed and taut. Slowly, however, his mouth stretched into another devilish grin. "No. I am the Jester. Cicero died, and then Cicero was born."

The doctor paused in her note taking, and glanced upwards from behind her clipboard. "What do you mean by that?" Did a certain consciousness, a sanity, "die" somehow, and was reborn in another mindset? Did he used to be sane?

Cicero sighed and laid his head back again, closing his eyes. "My mother… She would be disappointed in poor Cicero if she knew."

"Knew what?"

Cicero turned his head again and glanced back to the psychologist. "Knew that he was trying to get rid of her."

The doctor allowed herself an expression, one which she wish she hadn't – fear. He was trying to get rid of his mother? Was he going to kill her? Should she call someone? This conversation was far too intense for the first five minutes of their session. She needed to stop where this was going, and begin from the beginning. Recommence. Wipe the slate clean. Perhaps if she was to get more knowledge of him through gently easing him into comfortable conversation (if he was capable of such a thing) she could understand him better – him and his lunacy.

"How about we slow things down a little, Cicero," Dr. Stoker said, looking back down to her clipboard. "How about you tell me what you do for a living. Do you have any hobbies?"

"Oh, Cicero has plenty of hobbies," he replied, looking back to the ceiling. He didn't say anything for a long moment. Dr. Stoker looked up to him from her clipboard, and watched him. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling, wandering about the asbestos-filled ceiling tiles, and the fluorescent lights (which she refused to turn on, and resorted to a softer, yellower light bulb in a lamp).

"Cicero?" she asked. He blinked and turned his head to look at her for a moment, before smiling innocently, and glancing back to the ceiling, though he seemed much less interested.

It was as though he was habituating, like a baby being introduced a new stimuli and regarding it, until it was bored of it. A million stages of moral, psychosocial, psychosexual stages from thousands of theorists ran through her mind, giving her suggestions for reasons why she was not like that. Piaget, Erikson, Freud, they all screamed in her ear, telling her "He never made it past the autonomy vs. shame and guilt stage", "He is governed by his id", "He's still going through the concrete-operational stage", etc. She sighed heavily, trying to banish the theorists' voices, attempting to focus on her own thoughts.

"Cicero likes to dance and sing," he told her. Dr. Stoker's eyes flashed open, and she looked to the madman, who was still staring at the ceiling. She had a headache.

"Do you?" she said, going through the motions. "Please elaborate."

"Cicero is humble, but Cicero loves it when he is being watched," he told her. "He likes the attention. He likes it when people speak to him, because he never hears Her voice. She won't speak to him. No, Cicero needs people to speak to him. So, he dances and sings and hopes that someone will say something. He doesn't want to listen to the silence anymore." he erupted into a fit of laughter. "Cicero is not crazy!"

"I didn't say you were," Dr. Stoker told him, jotting down what he was saying in her notes. The silence? "You mention silence. Does the laughing ever stop and you don't hear anything?"

"The laughing never stops," Cicero replied. "But the laughing is silent. And She won't speak to poor, poor Cicero. She won't banish the silence. So, Cicero laughs – he needs to hear something, since he cannot hear Her."

"Cicero, who is this woman you keep mentioning?" Dr. Stoker said, looking to him.

Again, Cicero turned his head and looked to her. His gaze was incredibly intense, and dark, as though he was suddenly not himself. It was as though someone had gone into his mind, contorted his face to glare evilly at her. She kept her eyes on him, banishing the powerful emotions she was feeling from befalling her face, betraying her objectivity.

He said nothing for a long moment, just watching her with a dark stare. "Cicero..?" Dr. Stoker said. "Who is the woman?"

"The woman," Cicero seethed, his voice deep and harsh. He grinned slowly, his eyes only darkening as he did so. "Mother."


	2. Chapter 2

"What did I tell you?" Wanda said, shaking her head. "He's completely insane."

"I don't know," replied Clarice. "He is really suggesting that he wants to change, and knows of his insanity. I think that's good enough to keep going."

"Well, did anything happen after that?" Wanda asked, sipping her martini.

Clarice shrugged. "Nothing, really. He kept talking about his love of dancing, mentioned the jester a few more times…"

"Did he talk about his job?" Wanda inquired.

Clarice shook her head. "Not really. He said that he used to work, but when his mother came home, he wasn't allowed to leave her." Clarice shrugged, taking a sip of her beer. "Something like that. I think she's really sick or something, and is probably the reason he's going insane."

"Funny," Wanda smirked. "He didn't tell my therapist friend anything about his job. He refused when she asked. Maybe he likes you."

"Doubt it," Clarice replied. "He spent most of his time giving me this… really creepy stare. I don't think he'll come back to me."

"If I was a gambling woman, I'd say he does," Wanda grinned. "Anyway, what else did he say? I'm curious."

"Not much, to be honest," Clarice responded. "A lot about a jester… And laughing. Maybe something happened in his youth with a clown or something that screwed him up."

"Like molestation?"

Clarice shrugged. "He mocks psychology, though. He basically kept making fun of theories and ideas, like saying he had a strange closeness with his first cousin and abusive alcoholic fathers. I know he's not being straight, he's just toying with me. It's weird. It's more like he's analysing me sometimes, since I can't make any sense of him.

"You know what's funny, though?" Clarice continued, pausing for thought, smirking at herself. "He's sort of… attractive, in a madman, I'm-gonna-tear-your-face-off sort of way."

Wanda burst out laughing. "Out of all the things I have heard about him, being hot really hasn't been on the list."

"Well, I didn't say _that_," Clarice chuckled. "I'm just saying that… I don't know, he has this certain rugged, mysterious, dark sort of thing about him that's just… enticing. And holy crap, you should see his hair. It's the reddest hair I have ever seen I my life. I'm shocked it's natural?"

"What if it is dyed?" Wanda mentioned.

Clarice shook her head. "No, because his eyebrows and everything are the same colour."

"And _everything_?" Wanda sneered, nudging her friend with her foot under the table, causing Clarice to blush violently. "Oh my God, do you know what you should do? You should ask him."

"Yes, because asking if the carpet matches the drapes is such a professional inquiry," Clarice said, voice soaked in sarcasm.

"He doesn't have to know it's a personal question," Wanda said, still grinning broadly. "Just ask him if it's natural, and if he says yes, say that you need proof in order to deduce a proper, professional opinion on him."

"Oh, for sure. Because, again, such information is necessary to formulate psychological conclusions," Clarice shook her head, taking the last sip of her beer. "Besides, I think he's smarter than that." While she said that, a waitress lifted the empty beer bottle off of the table, and placed a full, condensation-covered, freezing cold one in front of her. Clarice glanced at it for a second, before looking up to the waitress. "I'm sorry, I didn't order this."

"Oh, it's compliments of the man over the-" the waitress turned and gestured to an empty stool. "Hm. It seems he left already."

"Oh," Clarice looked around, curiously. "Did you catch his name?"

"No," the waitress frowned. "I didn't see much of him. He sort of kept his face covered. But his hair… I don't know if it's dyed or something, because it is the reddest hair I have ever seen."

Clarice paled, eyes widening. She looked to her friend across form her, who had a massive, stupid smile on her face and laughed a single time. Both women were completely without words.

"But between you and me," the waitress said, leaning down to get closer to Clarice. "He really gave me the creeps."

Dr. Stoker lugged her large bag over her shoulder, speed-walking down the hallway to her office. She listened to the muffled clicking of the heeled shoes on the floor, staring down at her cellphone as she walked. A client was sending her millions of text messages about being worried that his wife is cheating on him, and he doesn't know how to ask her. It was simply frustrating when her clients did this, since she felt as though she didn't have a personal life – work started before she was even in her office.

She glanced up when she was in the proper hallway, and saw an unfamiliar darkness near her door. She passed it off as being a light out in the hallway, made a mental note to call a maintenance person, and began to shuffle through her bag for her keys. During this process, she dropped her phone on the ground. She cursed under her breath, but left it to go through her seemingly-endless bag to find her keys somewhere in the abyss. Once she found them, she held them tightly, and moved her bag aside so she could fetch the fallen phone. As she did so, she saw the darkness incredibly close to her, and snapped her head up to look into it. She felt her adrenaline course suddenly, turning her veins to icy tubes under her flesh, and she practically leapt out of her shoes, when she found Cicero standing there, holding her phone.

"Jesus Christ!" she breathed. "Cicero, you scared me."

"Oh, Cicero is sorry," Cicero said, frantically, holding her phone out in front of himself. "He often gives that impression to people."

Clarice reached out to take her phone, but she paused when she noticed his hand. Not only was it shaking violently, but it was also covered in a mixture of wetness and a strange, opaque, white substance which clung to his flesh. His other hand matched it.

"Cicero!" Dr. Stoker pulled her hand back. "What happened to your hands?"

He paused and looked down to his hands, frowning. He slowly lifted his other hand, and began to slowly move the digits, cracking the opaque substance which covered his fingers and palms. He giggled slightly, curious as to what was covered his hands.

"Yes, yes," he said, frantically. "Oil and wax, oil and wax, oil and wax! Cicero had to change Mother's candles, but they were so small, so small. And Cicero cannot blow them out, in case his impure, contaminated breath touched sweet, sweet Mother. He needs to handle them carefully. And, oh! How they burn poor, poor Cicero's hands! Light the one with the other. Light the one with the other. And how the wax pours all over poor Cicero's hands!" he laughed as he continued to move his hands and crack the wax. "And, of course, humble Cicero has to oil Mother. Sweet, sweet Mother. She cannot go dry, or her taut, thin, gray skin will crack! Cicero saw a maggot. Oh, how it died between his fingers! Taut, thin, gray skin. Taut, thin, gray skin. It must be moisturised. She may move freely within the void, but Cicero must take care of Her while she is in this physical, fallible, fragile state. After all, She can't take care of Herself!"

Dr. Stoker paled slightly, watching the madman seemed to sing his babblings. "Cicero, your mother isn't dead, is she?"

Cicero looked to her for a moment, before laughing loudly. "Of course not! She lives and lives and lives and lives, and never will She die! At least, not while Cicero is Her Keeper."

Dr. Stoker said nothing for a long moment, before taking the phone from Cicero's oily fingers, wiping it off on her pant leg, and placing it back into her purse. "You know you don't have an appointment with me today, do you, Cicero?"

"Oh, Cicero knows this very well," the lunatic replied. "But he was cleaning the Mother, oiling her until she is so beautiful, but during this whole time, I could not hear Her voice in my head. She doesn't speak to poor, dear Cicero. So, he cannot have a conversation with her! Cicero feels like the Mother, sometimes, since he needs a Listener. So, Cicero was thinking… Maybe I deserve a Listener! Dr. Stoker, you will become Cicero's listener! But hopefully dear Mother would not get jealous…"

Dr. Stoker sighed and opened her door. She walked in and kept the door open so Cicero could come in. She did her usual motions, dropping her purse behind her desk, hanging her coat on the coat hanger, unlocking her desk, taking the clipboard out from within the drawer.

"Cicero, there's a bathroom through that door there," she pointed to a door between two massive, full bookshelves. "You can use it to wash off your hands. Let me know if you need anything."

"Oh, thank you, Cicero's Listener!" Cicero said, running to the door, opening it with his elbows, and entering into the bathroom.

Dr. Stoker sighed heavily and collapsed into the chair behind her desk. She spun around and stared out the massive window, to the world below her, all in the shadow of skyscraper in which her office hid. Her entire office smelt of the vanilla votive she often melted over a candle for a sort of aromatherapy. She hated the smell of it. She used to not mind it, but after smelling it day in and day out, she detested it – she could hardly eat vanilla ice cream, because the taste of it reminded her of her office, which reminded her of the patients that just want to speak, and not receive any opinions (which she hated doing). The look of her office was something that also annoyed her. She always loved having big, bold, sharp colours in her abodes, but her office was a combination of dark brown, light cream, topaz-like colours. Her deep brown carpets were unnaturally soft, the paintings that hung in her office were abstract and meaningless, and the vast majority of the books in the bookshelves by her desk, she had never read in her entire life. This is all for the sake of her patients, however. And people wondered why she rebelled against the traditional psychological conventions.

She wasn't sure what to do with this man. Obviously, he was completely insane. Perhaps he was experiencing a mental breakdown or some sort of episode, and knew that she was the only person, and her office was the only place, where someone was listening to him, as he had mentioned.

Wanda had never mentioned him nicknaming the doctors. He was definitely different from anyone she had ever dealt with. She had heard of people like him before, but only from other psychologists who have been practising much longer than she had; she had read about his type in psychology textbooks and from professors as a hypothetical, worst-case-scenario patient. It was for these reasons she was finding such a difficult time knowing how to deal with him. She was known for not being the most orthodox psychologists, and vowed under the saying "if you don't like my style, don't bother coming to see me", but everything she had ever thought of to treat or help this man, seemed to fall short of what he probably required. The only thing she thought of doing, was stepping even further away from conventional schemas of psychology, and take matters into her own hands – she was also planning on rewriting the psychology textbooks while she was at it.

After a while, Cicero returned from the bathroom, his coat off and wearing nothing but a small, white t-shirt to cover his chest. He stood outside of the bathroom door, and watched her, unmoving. She slowly turned around after hearing the bathroom door close and jumped slightly when she saw Cicero standing here. She smirked slightly to herself, when she noticed that his arm hair was, in fact, as red as the hair on his head.

"My apologies, Dr. Stoker," Cicero said, not making eye contact. "Cicero tends to panic when he's left alone. He doesn't deal well with… solitude."

"Cicero, can I ask you a question?" Dr. Stoker said, crossing her legs.

"Of course, Doc," Cicero replied, clutching his coat close to his chest. "You ask the questions, and Cicero provides the answers."

"Why do you insist on staying away from psychiatrists?"

Cicero smirked slowly, his eyes flickering. "Why do you?"

"Because I believe that a person can be cured without medicating them into zombies," Dr. Stoker replied, humouring him.

Cicero's smirk turned into a sneer, and he slowly began to pull on his jacket. "Exactly. Cicero doesn't do well with being a zombie."

Dr. Stoker frowned and stood. "Where are you going?"

Cicero paused and glanced back to her, raising an eyebrow. "Leaving? You have made it quite clear that you do not have time for poor Cicero."

Dr. Stoker sighed and stood, walking to the door, opening it, and placing the "occupied" slide into the small space on her door. She then closed the door, and turned to face Cicero.

"I have time before my first client," she told him. "Please, have a seat."


	3. Chapter 3

"You know, I have always thought that if you put a lump of coal up your ass, when you fart, you'd pop out a diamond," Wanda said, grinning, watching her friend over her martini.

"You're so crass," Clarice replied, laughing. "I'm not that tight, you know."

"Evidently," Wanda replied. "You had whole session with a seriously insane man, entirely for free."

"I couldn't help it!" Clarice replied, sitting back. "He's just so intriguing. I think he goes through episodes when he's alone. His mother lives with him but I think she's some sort of vegetable, and he has to make sure she stays… oiled. But he lives alone other than that, and with his already-psychotic tendencies, a man like him being alone all the time is pretty dangerous. I didn't want him to go home when he was so fragile. And we did have an incredibly interesting conversation!"

"Oh?" Wanda said, sitting back as well. "About what?"

Clarice shrugged. "Nothing, of interest, to be honest. He told me about his mother and how he was afraid of being away from her, but he hated the silence that accompanied her. He also asked about me a little bit, and I basically just told him that I had a normal childhood with divorced parents, lived with my mother and step-dad, grew up normally, went to school like a normal child, had friends, went to university, got my PhD in psychology, blah, blah, blah."

"Did he ask about your relationships?" Wanda asked her friend, frowning slightly. Clarice didn't answer for a long moment. "You didn't mention Pat, did you?"

"I didn't think it was necessary," Clarice replied, quickly. "I didn't want to talk about that with him."

"How long has it been for you?" Wanda asked, taking a sip of her martini, a tiny smirk returning to her face.

"I had a date a year after Pat!" Clarice replied, growing defensive, but also returning the smile.

"Did you sleep with him?"

"Yes!" Clarice replied, taking a large sip of her beer. "It was… Um… Okay?"

Wanda burst out laughing. "You need to get laid, love. For the both of us – it's just excruciating watching you being so tight all the time."

"I'm not tight!" Clarice repeated, making her friend laugh louder.

As Clarice laughed, a body approached her, and hung over her for a moment, placing another beer onto the table in front of herself. She frowned and looked at the beer, following the arm up to the person who brought it. The waitress, same from the night before, smiled kindly and extended her hand to take the beer. Clarice finished the beer and handed her the empty bottle.

"The new beer is compliments of the same man from last night," the waitress said. "He left before I could give it to you."

Clarice watched the beer and frowned slightly. She looked back up to Wanda who shrugged, grinning, and finished her own beverage. Clarice glanced down at the drink and frowned. She wasn't quite sure what to make of what was going on. In one morning, it seemed, her entire world was… tilted, slightly, to one side, only enough to provide an inconvenience, like those who tread horizontally upon hills. At the same time, however, it did become interesting. She had had a routine about her life – go to work, listen to countless people complain about trivial matters, go for a beer with her best friend, go home, light a few candles (not vanilla), make dinner for herself, maybe take a bath, read for an hour or so, then pass out. Alone, but content. Now, she didn't know what to do with herself. She felt the oil on her phone when a patient sent her a text. She saw the wax crust in her sink. She saw a single red hair on her couch. She heard his voice saying his own name. She had that beer.

"He matters," Clarice heard her friend say.

Clarice looked up between her mascara-coated eyelashes and watched her for a while, trying to understand what she meant. However, deep in her mind, she knew what her best friend meant. He did matter. She was his Listener, after all.

"Alright, Cicero, I want to try something different today," Dr. Stoker offered, scribbling something on her clipboard.

Cicero grinned, staring at the ceiling. "You know, you really should get something on your ceiling. It would give your victims a little something to look at. Perhaps a series of jokes. Ooh! Cicero has a good one. A man asks another man about a certain horker-"

"Cicero, please try to focus," Dr. Stoker insisted, glancing up to the man lying on the couch. He had one leg bent, one hand on his elevated knee, the other on the ground. She followed his arm down, and watched his fingers playing aimlessly with the carpet below him. He smirked slowly, and flicked his eyes in the direction of the doctor, where they rested for a moment, before he sighed and nodded.

"Thank you," she continued. "Now, I just want to have a discussion with you. I'm not going to ask many questions, but I just want to talk with you, and listen to what you have to say. I want this discussion to be unbridled. Speak as you wish, and don't stop speaking until your thought is complete." (A feat she knew perfectly well was somewhat impossible for a crazy man). "Oh, and one more thing," Dr. Stoker said, glancing back down to her clipboard. "I don't want you to keep anything from me. I want you to speak truthfully, and hold nothing back."

Cicero's head turned, and he looked at her for a long moment. "Very well, Doc," he said, looking back to the ceiling. His bright red brow was furrowed slightly. "Ask away. Cicero swears to answer."

"Good," Dr. Stoker nodded. She inhaled deeply, as though preparing to run a marathon. She held in in her lungs for a long moment. She could taste his scent, which reminded her of a strange spicy sweetness, like a habanero pepper coated in sugar dust. The concept made her uneasy, but, for some reason, the smell was intoxicating. She swallowed hard, his aroma filling her insides, before exhaling the carbon dioxide, and Cicero's scent along with it. She then glanced back down to her clipboard, and prepared her pen to run its own marathon. And so it commenced. "Who are you?"

Cicero's eyes widened for a moment, before he turned his head quickly, and looked to the psychologist. He examined her face for a long moment. She knew he was doing this, but she refused to look up to the clipboard. She wanted to pass off the question as though it was a normal, easily-answered question, which she knew perfectly well wasn't. He looked back down to the carpet, before allowing his eyes to trail to his boots (which had a strange curl at the toes).

"I am Cicero," he told her. "Cicero is Cicero. But, I suppose, Cicero hasn't always been Cicero, has he?"

"What do you mean?" Dr. Stoker asked, looking to him for a brief moment, before looking back down to the clipboard.

"Well, there was the jester, of course," Cicero told her. "And the Brotherhood. The Mother, of course. And I was made Keeper once the Listener died. And we ran, and ran. And the jester chased me, until he caught up with poor, poor Cicero. You see, Cicero could run, but he could not hide. And when he found me, he consumed me – he consumed Cicero. And, thus, Cicero was born, after Cicero died. And, for a while, it was just Cicero, the Mother, and solitude. Silence, loneliness. Until he found out about the other sanctuary. Then, he travelled. He met a prophecy, who spared him when a bitch told him to die. Then, there was the Hagraven… He left the mother for only a moment… Stupid, Cicero…" he kicked the back of the couch, hard.

The motion startled the psychologists and she quickly looked up. There, she found, Cicero, laying on the couch, eyes closed, with an expression of complete pain. His face was contorted into that of anguish and frustration, probably with himself. He slowly rolled onto his side and crumpled into a tiny ball on the couch. He seemed so small at that moment. He kept his eyes closed so tightly, that his red eyebrows and dark-ringed eyes were shivering. His fists were balled so tightly that his knuckles whitened under the pressure. He was babbling utter nonsense. A prophecy? A hag-raven? What is that? What brotherhood was he a part of, or was it all some sort of euphemism for something else entirely.

The intensity was becoming too much; the room seemed to fill with another liquid tension, but this time, it was burning not. It scorched her skin, and danced upon her flesh as it raised and filled the room. Liquid flames licked her skin, tasted the ends of her hair, grabbed her, pulled her under. The man, so small, so sad, shuddered on the couch, muttering things under his breath. Only he could pull the plug to release all the liquid that filled the room and suffocated her, burned her lungs.

"Cicero," she coughed. "Are you alright?"

Suddenly, the man flinched and his eyes flashed open. He sat up quickly, breathing hard. He looked to her, frowning, eyebrows furrowed, as though he had no idea what just happened. His eyes wandered about the room, as though he wasn't sure where he was. They didn't settle on anything, as though he had to examine the world through new, fresh eyes, and scan every object slowly, thoroughly. He didn't move for a long while, before looking directly into the eyes of the psychologist, and pausing.

"What happened?" he asked. "What did I say?"

Dr. Stoker's eyes widened. Did he seriously not remember anything that just happened? It was a frightening thought. "Cicero," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "I… I don't understand you. At all."

Slowly, Cicero grinned. This familiar grin eased her slightly, and she found herself able to breathe easier, knowing that the Cicero she knew had returned to her. He was conscious again, and she had to be careful to not allow that fragile consciousness to not slip away again.

"Do you want to know why Cicero chose you?" he asked, sitting back comfortably. Dr. Stoker nodded. "Because he knew you were different. You were… eccentric. Charismatic, in a way. Much like Cicero himself. Cicero has tried a counsellor. He has tried a therapist. He has tried psychoanalysis and hypnosis, and nothing has worked. You see, when Cicero first felt the jester's presence, and heard the laughter, he was… in control. He knew of the presence, and lived with it, like neighbours, even when the silence became overwhelming. So, so overwhelming. But once the Hagraven landed, things changed completely. He was left alone with the silence and the Mother again, but for so, so long. The silence swallowed poor, lonely Cicero whole. He lost complete control. Cicero could hardly remember who he was, sometimes, or where he was. Lost, lost, lost, and alone.

"I need help, Dr. Stoker," he told her, desperately. "I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can hardly feel anymore. I'm breaking down, Dr. Stoker. I need you to help me. Please, do not turn poor, lonely, aching Cicero away like everyone else has."

Dr. Clarice Stoker sat in her seat, watching him, expressionless, like she had trained herself for years, and the only thought that came to her mind, was that she needed to clear her schedule for a while.


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't think this is healthy," Wanda commented, looking worried at her friend over her half-full martini. "Are you sure you can afford to only see this guy for a while?"

"He needs me, Wanda," Clarice told her. "More than all those other idiots do. They have problems with their mothers and their sisters and their cheating wives. Cicero has a serious, serious issue. He's on the verge of self-destructing. If I don't do this, he may hurt himself, or worse."

"Why not just report him to the police?" Wanda offered. "Say he's a madman on the verge of hurting himself, or someone else, and needs to be detained."

"So, what, he'll be locked away in some psych ward for the rest of his life, while his mother rots wherever she is?" Clarice rebutted.

"Well, what else did you get out of him?" Wanda asked. "I hate to ask the same question every night, but if you're not going to lose him, you're going to need someone to talk to about it. Otherwise it'll drive you insane too."

Clarice sighed, finishing off her third beer. She knew she required more than one or two that night, considering the day she had. "He told me he was from somewhere far away, had a somewhat dysfunctional childhood with abusive parents and whatnot – you're typical 'dysfunction'. Anyway, it drove him to want to do some not-so-great things with a certain gang or something, called 'The Dark Brotherhood'. I Googled that, and found nothing, by the way. Anyway, he had to move somewhere North, sort of a Viking place, and learned to love the cold, which is why he moved here, with his mother."

"A gang member?" Wanda said, furrowing her brow. "This keeps sounding worse the more you tell me about it. What if he tries to kill you? What if he's some sort of drug dealer or something?"

"Out of all the things I told you, that's what you take from it," Clarice remarked. "Besides, he doesn't like drugs. Don't worry about me, Wanda. I know what I'm doing with this guy. I think you need to meet him or something to really understand what's happening with him."

"Maybe I'll get to," she stated. "If he buys you another beer."

Clarice's eyes suddenly widened, and she quickly looked to the bar, where the waitress said he had been sitting each time he ordered her a drink. She sighed heavily when she found it empty, and she looked back to her friend. In her peripheral vision, however, behind Wanda, she saw a dark figure sitting in the seat, facing the pair. She could not see the face, but she could make out a pair of glinting eyes watching her, as though waiting for her to make a move. It was unmoving, relentless in its stare. She stared right back, not because she was trying to challenge the figure, but because she found herself unable to look away.

Wanda watched her friend's face fall and pale. Clarice's eyes were wide and fixed on something behind herself. She tried calling he friend's name, but Clarice didn't make a motion. Wanda swallowed hard, and inhaled deeply, bracing herself for whatever was about to happen, before turning and facing whatever was behind her. Slowly, she began to see a dark figure, the small glint of eyes fixated on the subject past her. She began to turn her body. She felt her blood boil, the hair rise on the back of her neck.

"Ms. Stoker?" a voice broke the chains pulling both woman towards the sight. Clarice's head snapped to the where the voice was coming from. Her heart was racing, unintentionally. Wanda allowed herself to breathe again as she watched the new subject standing there, bending over the table, facing the psychologist.

"Yes," Clarice said, sighing heavily. She blinked and looked to the person. It was an old client of hers. He just wanted to say hello, provide a pointless update of his own life (more about everyone else's life), say he was getting married, blah, blah, blah. Another person he helped survive in this cold, cruel world. I just want to thank you. Whatever, whatever.

When the person finally walked away, Clarice turned her head back to the dark figure which had loomed behind Wanda, and found the seat empty. There were no gleaming eyes, no suggestions of there ever having existed a dark presence there. Simply emptiness. A void.

The waitress took Clarice's beer bottles, and placed another fresh one down in front of her. Clarice turned her head to look at it, and widened her eyes slightly. She looked up to the waitress, not saying a thing.

"Yeah," the waitress said. "Another drink from the creepy redhead. This time, though, he came in and left right after paying for your drink. He didn't even have one himself."

"What does he drink?" Clarice asked the waitress.

"Rum and coke," she told him. "But he never finishes it. It's like he just likes sipping it for a moment, buys you a drink, and leaves. He's really strange."

"Oh, trust me," Clarice said, sighing. "That's an understatement."

"What are you writing?" Cicero asked, leaning forward, his hands either side of his face, elbows propped up on his knees. "I always see you with that clipboard. What about poor Cicero needs to be written down?"

"Oh, um, nothing," Dr. Stoker said, glancing down to the scribble of stars and doodles surrounding Cicero's name in bubble letters. She pressed the clipboard against her chest, looking up to Cicero, forcing herself to supress her blush. "Confidential."

Cicero frowned, tilting his head slightly. "Cicero tries not to keep anything from his Listener. Why does she keep things from Cicero?"

Dr. Stoker frowned, watching Cicero. She sighed, and placed the clipboard – face-down – onto the carpet beneath her. He watched her, sitting up straight. She uncrossed her legs, and leaned forward to regard him closer. He didn't remove his eyes from her, curious of his next move, but perplexed by the suddenness of a move at all.

It had been darker outside. She had a few clients in the morning, but cleared her schedule for the night, and planned for Cicero to come closer to the end of the day.

"I don't have any more clients today," she told him (this was true, after a few cancellations she had made the day before). "Would you like to grab a coffee or something?"

Cicero frowned and looked down to his strange boots. "It is dangerous to give Cicero coffee. Besides, it tastes like water and wood."

Dr. Stoker snorted, but covered her mouth before she could burst out laughing. She nodded. "Very well. You can get a hot chocolate."

Cicero looked to her for a small moment, before swallowing hard, and sighing, looking down to his clasped hands between his knees. "Cicero shouldn't. Mother wouldn't approve-"

"Cicero," she stopped him. He snapped his head up, looking to her with curious eyes. "Please. I want you to try to leave your house for a while. Go out there. I'll come with you. It'll be good for you."

Cicero shook his head violently. "I can't. Mother-"

"Cicero!" she said, louder than she intended. Again, his eyes focused on her, but they were wider than they had been before. She had startled him. She sighed and quickly apologised. "I want you to come out into the real world with me. I insist. Your mother can wait a few hours while you experience life."

Cicero watched her. His light brown eyes flickered to each of hers. Left, to right, to left, to right, in a constant cycle, while he pondered her suggestion. She was not allowing him to say no. He was not the sort of person to whom one would administer suggestions. Rather, he needed to be told what to do in order to agree with doing something. From this fact, she assumed that he had been told what to do his entire life, and was not given the choice to disobey – she was fairly certain that she had no idea how to disobey, only act based on what he was told (from others, or from his own fragile mind).

He grinned, sitting back slightly, watching her down her nose, head tilted slightly. He placed his clasped hands onto his stomach and slowly sneered. Of course, he could not refuse her. She was his Listener, after all.

Dr. Stoker and Cicero locked up the office, walked down the long, dimly-lit hallway, to the outdoors, together. They idly spoke to each other about things that didn't matter, which was something strange and new compared to how Cicero had spoken to her before that moment. It was proof for her (and perhaps for Wanda) that he was capable of standard conversation. They spoke about art and how he loved abstract artistry as long as it wasn't four different-coloured squares hanging side-by-side on a massive gallery wall, since that just doesn't make sense. We spoke about vehicles, and how he did not know how to drive, since cars scared him (he didn't trust them), but he loved riding horses. We spoke about gardening, and how he had a large mushroom garden back at his old house which was quite successful (though most were poisonous), and he didn't find it necessary to grow flowers when mushrooms are so much more fascinating. At any point, if he was to mention his mother, she would stop him and say something to deter him from the reference.

She managed to get him into her own vehicle and we left the downtown area, into the oldest part of the city where each building was tall, thin, Victorian, and made of ancient brick, stone, and wood. There were few houses; each building had two to three apartments. The trees were also quite old, massive, maple. The sidewalks weren't well taken care of; neither was the road, but it added character to the whole place. The air always smelt of freshness, especially when the atmosphere was dense with rain, as it was now. In the darkness, lanterns hanging from tall posts lit the road, as well as lights from the cozy homes. Many children lived in the area, due to the nearby elementary and high school. It was not cheap to live in this neighbourhood, but it was comfortable, and therefore it was worth it.

Cicero kept his head outside the window, looking around in awe. The speed limit in this area of town was very slow, due to the constant activity of children, so he could keep his head outside of the window without suffocating from a lung stuffed with wind. He inhaled the scent of the place many times, closing his eyes to enjoy himself. She glanced to him a few times from behind her steering wheel and noticed that he seemed to have a different glow to his visage – that of comfort, a lack of ample stress. The skin on his face seemed less taut, and she was sure if she was to touch the skin on his neck and shoulders, she would find the same thing. She couldn't help but smile.

Soon, she pulled up into a dark, stone duplex's driveway. Cicero was already out of the car before it was parked, breathing heavily in mock, exaggerated relief from some sort of torment. She rolled her eyes, and parked the car, before following him out of it, and to her narrow, tall building. Cicero was practically doing hand stands beside her as she unlocked the door.

The inside of her home shocked Cicero, mostly because it was absolutely nothing like her office. It was not covered in warm, calming colours. Rather, sharp, contrasting colours that would catch one's eye and refuse to allow them to falter. The entrance led to a narrow hallway, which lead to the kitchen at the back of the house. The kitchen's colour scheme was black, white, with red accents. The living room, which was to the immediate right, was themed deep purple, black, and white. The dining room which was right behind the living room was orange, black, and white…etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

"Ooh, _ooh_!" Cicero said, smiling broadly. "Cicero was not expecting this!"

"You should see my bedroom," she told him. "It's lime green."

Cicero crossed his arms and turned to face her. "You surprise me, Dr. Stoker. Cicero knew he liked you for a reason!"

"Oh, please," she said. "Call me Clarice. You're in my home, now. You're a guest." She told him where to put his coat, and she walked into the kitchen.

There, as quickly as she could, she got out a beer for herself, and, with shaking hands, began to prepare Cicero his drink that she knew he drank. She called back to him, and told him to make himself at home in the living room. She could envision him already doing so, but figured she might as well inform him, lest he try to venture into the kitchen. This was a test.

She walked into the living room, and found him already sitting on the couch, boots beside him, legs propped up on the table, hands on his elevated knees. She sat in her beloved Lay-Z-Boy chair which was beside the couch, and placed each drink on the coffee table in front of the furniture. Cicero threw his legs down and sat forward, looking to the drink. The moment he noticed what it was, he paused and looked up to her, grinning. She watched him curiously, eyeing and monitoring his reaction. He looked back down to the drink before looking back up to her, sneering.

"Thank you," he said, lifting the drink and sipping it. He widened his eyes slightly and looked to the glass. "Ooh! This one is even better than the one that bartender makes!"

Clarice couldn't help herself at that moment. She burst out laughing, uncontrollably, sitting back in her chair. He looked to her and laughed lightly, not really sure what she was laughing at. He laughed at her laughing, something he hadn't done in a long while, considering how he would mostly laugh at himself laughing. One she collected herself, she placed her beer down, and walked to her sound system, going through the CDs she had.

"Cicero, have you ever heard of Florence and the Machine?" she asked him, her index finger resting on "Ceremonials".

Cicero paused. "Flowers and the what? Oh! I should get Mother some flowers…"

Clarice frowned, pulling out the CD case from its slot in the holder, and removed the CD from the case. Cicero sat in his spot, watching her curiously. She placed the CD in the case, and skipped to the second song: "Shake it Out". The song basically spoke about a sort of hardship an individual goes through should sometimes be disregarded in order to allow people to live their lives normally. She knew this was a good song for Cicero, considering the "devil on his back" was quite large.

"Florence and the Machine," she repeated. "Probably my favourite band."

"Back where Cicero comes from, no one has a favourite bard," Cicero remarked, watching the stereo play the song as though it was about to consume him. "Mostly because everyone sings the same three songs, or plays the same few instruments."

Clarice sat beside him, watching him curiously. "I want to know more about you, Cicero. I want to know where you came from, what your life was like before you came here."

Cicero looked to her and smiled. For the first time she saw him, the smile looked gentle, and sincere. He sighed and shook his head. "Hmm… If Cicero was to tell you, you would never believe him."

She leaned forward slightly, returning his smile. "Try me."

Cicero frowned, looking to her for a long moment, before slapping his knees and standing, walking around the table. He bobbed his head slightly with the music, looking at the books on her bookshelves (these ones she had actually read). "Does Dr. Sto- Clarice have children? Where is her husband?"

Clarice watched him for a long moment, before looking away from him, up to her ceiling, trying to maintain the objective expression. When she didn't answer for a long while, Cicero turned his head to look at her. "…Clarice?"

"I'm a widow," Clarice told him. She looked back up to him, her eyes slightly red. "Do you know what that means?"

Cicero paused, frowning, looking away from her. He nodded. "I'm sorry."

"No, no," she shook her head, sniffing. She wiped her eye carefully. "It was an honest question. It happened a long time ago. It's in the past, now."

Cicero nodded again, looking back to the bookshelf. He examined the books, but he didn't really see them. A great many things were going through his mind at that point. Never before had he been taken to a therapist's house. Never before did he find anything out about a counsellor's personal life. Never before did a psychotherapist care that much about trying to get him away from an unhealthy situation. Never before had anyone been as concerned with him as a person, rather than him as a subject.

"Clarice…" he said, his voice low. He cleared his throat and turned to face her. She was watching him intently. "Cicero cannot tell you his sad, sad story. You'll think he's crazier than you did before. Cicero is… Um…" he cleared his throat again, fumbling with his own hands in front of himself. "He's worried you'll never want to talk to him again. He doesn't want to be alone anymore, Dr. Stoker. He doesn't want to hear the laughing."

Clarice watched him, eyebrows furrowed. He was making so much progress. He seemed to be moving away from the episodes, he did not refer to himself in the third person as much, and he even spoke of his mother less than he had before. His cognition seemed to be functioning on a much more adaptive state. Regardless of all these changes and advancements in his own world, he was still keeping things from her. This meant that there were still things which he was not prepared to deal with. Perhaps his childhood was so shocking, so abusive, so depressing that he was not willing to share it. Perhaps he still didn't trust her.

"You know you can trust me, right?" she told him.

He watched her for a long moment. His eyes scanned her face, her eyes, her posture. He saw her eyes fixed on his, watching him, assuring him. He felt comfortable, here. Calm. Placid. Unbothered by his outside, throbbing, detestable world separate from his sessions with this woman. What he was used to out there, back home, back where his world used to make sense… It was so different from where he was now. It was so advanced, so different – so difficult to get used to. But with this doctor – Clarice – things seemed to make sense. She eased him into understanding, and helped him speak how he wanted to, how he knew he could, and say what he needed to say (well, most of it). He turned away from her and watch the stereo. He began to hum the song which was playing.

"This song is great to dance to," he remarked, watching the digital bars pulse with the beat of the song on the tiny screen. "Cicero loves upbeat music like this. No bards back where he comes from played music like this."

Clarice stood and walked to him, placing her beer on the table. She kept a distant proximity from him, worried about moving too quickly towards him. "I want to know you, Cicero. Please. Don't be afraid of telling me what you're thinking. You need to talk to someone. It isn't healthy to keep it all inside."

He turned his head to glance at her. He looked worried, which she knew perfectly well he was. He was afraid of the consequences of telling her his incomprehensible thoughts or filling her with his past. It was a dangerous step off of a cliff which may end in an ocean, or on hard rock. Perhaps it was time he took the step.

"Cicero comes from a place called Tamriel," he began. He inhaled deeply, and plunged into darkness.


	5. Chapter 5

"Cicero's long-ago past is not interesting, that's for sure," he began. "Sure, my childhood was… difficult. But that happened so long ago, that Cicero's moved forward in a direction he believes is best for him. He used to be… Sane. Ha, ha, ha! What a relative word. 'Sane'. To each his own, of course! Anyway, Cicero's race is called 'Imperial', from Cyrodiil. He became a part of what is called 'The Dark Brotherhood', because it was the only place he felt at home. Home! Another relative word. Who dictates what his 'home'? But he met the Night Mother. Poor, homely Cicero was humbled at the sight of her! He felt her power radiating off of her, and Cicero already felt unworthy to be in her presence.

"You asked humble Cicero if his Mother is dead. Technically, her body is no longer filled with her soul, but she does speak through the body she used to have. The beautiful, magnificent Night Mother is far from dead! And never will she die!

"After a great many happenings, the Listener was killed, and we had to flee the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary in Cheydinhal. Humble Cicero, faithful Cicero, was appointed Mother's Keeper! I suppose that doesn't make much sense. Cicero forgets you don't know much about the Brotherhood. You see, the Night Mother administrates her orders to only one person, and that lucky, lucky person is called the Listener! The Listener is the only one lucky enough to hear her voice. She gives orders to this Listener, and the Listener tells the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood obeys what she dictates. It all goes 'round and 'round and 'round and 'round! But when you do not have a Listener, who is to hear the Night Mother's voice? And if you cannot hear the night Mother's voice, how can we fill out contracts? And if we cannot fill our contracts, how does the Brotherhood stay afloat?

"One by one by one by one, my brothers and sisters were killed off! Cicero, as the faithful Keeper was left all alone, completely isolated. Forever and ever alone. Cicero took it upon himself to find a place for him and his beloved, sweet Mother to stay! There were two sanctuaries in the winter province of Tamriel, called Skyrim. Beautiful Skyrim! Cicero had his own sanctuary in Dawnstar, but he had to take his beloved Mother to where the Brotherhood was. More solitude, more alone, all alone. Cicero, the Fool of Hearts, and the sweet, sweet Night Mother. Meanwhile, a prophecy was being born. A prophecy of Dragons.

"Tamriel, you see, is a place where man, elf, reptile, and feline live much as you do in this world. Sure, some are in a constant, endless war with each other, but it is the thought that counts! There were Argonians and Khajiit and Orcs and Altmer and Bosmer and Dunmer and Frightening Falmer and Nords and Red Guards and Breton and Imperials and suddenly Dragons! And the Prophecy came out of it, for the Prophecy could speak the Dragon Tongue and shout like Dragons could. And the Prophecy came to the Dark Brotherhood and, suddenly, the Night Mother, after so, so, so long of silence, spoke! To the prophecy, of course. Lucky, lucky Listener.

"Sure! Cicero wanted to become the Listener… but he couldn't. Cicero, dear Cicero, isn't worthy of hearing her sultry voice. Cicero is the Keeper, not the Listener – and keep he does.

"But how did silly Cicero snap?" he laughed uncontrollably. "The Jester! One of Cicero's contracts was a laughing jester. He laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed! Until he didn't. Cicero had to kill him, because that was what the wonderful Night Mother wanted of modest Cicero. But when the silence began to take over, and consume me, I could hear him laughing. The Jester. Laughing, laughing, laughing, laughing. No one else could hear the laughing, but I could. And oh, how Cicero loved the laughing! But he longed to hear Mother's voice. Cicero live to hear mother's voice. But he couldn't. He wasn't the Listener. He was the jester. The Fool of Hearts! Laughter incarnate!

"The sanctuary in Skyrim, close to pretty Falkreath, was betrayed and raided and so many people died. The Bitch Snake offered herself as a sacrifice, with good reason! She tried to have poor, poor Cicero killed! But the Listener didn't kill him. At his wits end, he wasn't meant to die. Caring, generous, gracious Listener! When the survivors of the bloody massacre at the sanctuary migrated to the Dawnstar sanctuary, Cicero's own sanctuary, they brought the Mother with them, and the Listener became the leader of the Dark Brotherhood, Skyrim division! And Cicero stayed Keeper.

"But if everything is so happy and good in Cicero's life at that moment, how did he end up here? The Hagraven! Those evil creatures are… Hmm… How shall I put this? They are bird-women who study magic. Witches! They screech incessantly! Kaw, kaw, kaw, kaw kaw! They are known for their expertise in destruction magic. But one had been delving into a different sort of magic! The evil, Daedric magic. Necromancy! A new member of the Brotherhood was told to kill this Hagraven, since those who resided around its camp were worried that it was to be the harbinger of the end of the world. But the soon-to-be-sister mucked it up! She got herself killed, and the Hagraven turned her wrath on the sanctuary! The creature burst through the back entrance and burned everything that could burn. Poor Cicero hid with his Mother, unknowing if anyone was still fighting, or if the fire swallowed everyone whole. The Hagraven soon turned her gaze on us – the Mother and me.

"'You are a perfect test subject,' it said to poor Cicero. 'Not even Sithis can tell you where you may end up!'

"Then it held out is feathered arms, extended its destruction-filled claws, and cast a spell on poor Cicero and his beloved Night Mother. A thick, purple and black void consumed me, and I couldn't breathe. I gasped and gasped and gasped and gasped, but no breath came. Frightened Cicero felt like he was falling, falling, falling, but nothing was rushing past him. For a while, I was sure I had finally entered the Void! Cicero was ready to be welcomed by the Dread Lord and the wonderful Mother. Finally, I would hear her voice.

"But, no. The ride ended. Cicero's feeble lungs filled with air. I coughed endlessly for what seemed like so, so long. When I finally regained my sight, I looked around myself. Cicero and his dear, sweet Mother entered another world. Neither of us had ever seen anything like this before. After I discovered what way was up, I knew I had to try to survive. But, oh, the metal boxes on moving wheels! The huge buildings, the strange suits! The smoke in the air and the things in the sky! And everyone looked the same! Everyone thought poor Cicero was part of a 'mid-evil' fair? What is that?

"When I discovered how to live, I took my beloved Night Mother to a grocer, since it seemed to be the only thing I understood. I tried to buy something, but they didn't accept my gold! Cicero was sent to have it appraised, and received so, so much of your decorated paper. Cicero managed to buy a small home for him and his beloved Night Mother, surrounded by these strange people that seemed to know nothing of anything and anywhere. I was… Alone. Again. Surrounded by people, but completely alone.

"But all these people who surrounded me told me that I was insane. I was so obviously different. How could poor Cicero survive in this world, when he was so different from everyone else? That was when he knew he needed to find someone who could help him be… Well… Normal. And it took so, so, so, so, so long, but I eventually found… you. You, who listens when poor Cicero is alone and crying, while the Jester laughs. Yes, he is laughing again. But you… You are helping me. You can hear me when he is laughing. You can hear me when I am screaming. You listen. To me.

"And… Thus… Here we are, Doc. You, me, and Cicero."

When he was finished his speech, he did not look to her. He fixed his eyes on the hardwood floor below him, and traced the grains in the wood with his eyes. He was too afraid to look up. Cicero. The man who was essentially the manifestation of insanity and not-caring, was worried about what another person thought of him. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to turn his mind inward, and not even listen to a word she might speak.

She didn't move. She merely stood her ground, watching him. She truly had nothing to say. A million questions floated about her head, rattling within her skull, tickling her corpus callosum with thin, nail-like fingers. She knew perfectly well, though, that asking any of those questions could potentially put all the progress he has made in great jeopardy. Essentially, the only thing she knew she could do, was stand there and watch him, while the next song the album began to play. She knew very well that in order for any sort of relationship between the two individuals was to continue, she needed him to speak first.

And in complete honesty, she had absolutely no idea whether or not she believed anything he just said. Obviously, it was completely illogical, and went against anything she had ever learned. Obviously, the entire thing sounded completely insane. But was it really? Was that story really just the ramblings of a madman, concocted to fool the fragile psychologist? Was he testing her gullibility? Did he really believe what he just told her?

"This band," Cicero said, after a long while of silence. "The music is good to dance to."

"You talk all the time about dancing," Clarice said, her voice quiet. "But I have never seen you dance."

Cicero slowly looked up. His face showed no hint of madness, at that moment. No devilish grin or insane eyes were upon this eccentric visage. Instead, the former was replaced with a loose, serenity with a lack of taut wrinkles or smile lines. The latter was substituted by light brown eyes filled with clarity and peace, two adjectives she thought she would never use to describe the man. Slowly, his lips stretched into a content, though incredibly sad smile.

"Because," he told her. "Cicero-" he paused for a moment, closing his eyes. He opened them again. "iI/i don't have anyone to dance with."

Cautiously, she took a step towards him. She watched him closely, monitoring his reactions carefully as she approached him. He did not move, though he observed her curiously. One gentle step, two, three, until she was mere moments away from him. At this distance, her eyes were just below his, her body just inches from his. Carefully, she reached a hand towards him. She touched the hand opposite hers with her fingertips. His palm was warm but rough, and sent violent tingling through her entire body. He was like handling dynamite – one had to be so careful, so vigilant, else he might explode into fits of unpredictability. He did not move, though. Rather, his eyes slowly shifted down to his own hand. It was as though he wanted to do something in reply, but his body, and years and years of life without physical contact (other than that which could render him with bloody hands) disallowed him. The inner conflict raging within him, like a massive hurricane or a nuclear bomb about to explode, was strong enough to be felt by the doctor. His hands shook violently with longing.

"You can touch me," she said, her voice so quiet, both parties had a hard time hearing it.

At these words, Cicero allowed himself to indulge in his craving, and he carefully replied to her touch. He allowed his own fingertips to come into contact with hers. That simple motion, the simplicity of feeling fingertips, was enough to make them both want to crumple and land in each other's arms. Their hands explored each other's for a long moment, the other pair joining in the amusement, and they kept their eyes focused on one another's.

Eventually, he took her hands in his. She allowed her hands and arms to be manipulated by him. He moved her hands upwards, and gently placed one around his neck. Soon afterwards, one hand followed by the other, both her arms were snaked around his neck. His hands returned South, but stopped to vacation at her waist, where they held on gently. The music played behind them, soothing them, lulling them into submissiveness of each other. The sound of the beat, the music, the vocals, and each other's breathing keeping in time to the song, consumed them, until they drifted into the belly of the moment. Together, they danced in a ring of slowed time, their movements and unsaid words between the two disallowing anything to penetrate their dome of contentedness – even time. The world continued around them, but they remained suspended, lost, hardly seeing, hardly hearing, just feeling each other's presence – that was enough for them.

But the moment that surrounded them didn't end its play time there. It felt the need to take a step further into their dome, and consume them further. Before they knew it, sight was taken away from them. Sound was banished. The only thing they knew of at that moment, was each other. They felt each other. The madman and the psychologist. A man who hadn't known of real love in almost his entire life, and a psychologist who was merely trying to be the method to kill the madness. They were pulled together by the moment, forced to face each other, and be brought closer until the gap between them was sealed. They felt as though they were floating, lingering in the air, above the ground. She became the madman, overwhelmed by emotions, and he became the doctor, easing her through slowing of time and the closing of space, until all clocks were stopped, and all spaces closed. And their lips, like tractor beams, pulled them to a single destination – they were to meet at the middle.

The moment the two parties felt their lips upon each other, it was as though the world imploded. "Fireworks" was an understatement. Reality hovered around them, knowing perfectly well that it had no place in that world. His lips were dry, but warm and soft, and gave away easily under hers. The kiss seemed to never end. It was soft and gentle at first, but slowly eased into something much more passionate. His instincts took over for him, due to his complete lack of knowledge in the topic, and showed him what must be done.

He kissed her constantly, gently, full-heartedly. If his lips happened to leave hers for even a moment, it felt as though a chunk of himself was taken out of him, until he closed the gap again. She inhaled deeply, tasting his scent like she never imagined she would. She held her arms tightly around him, holding him, tasting him. His lips broke slightly to allow the emergence of his gentle tongue craving to taste her more deeply than he had. She replied to the motion with one that mimicked his. They tasted each other deeply until touch and taste were the only two senses which existed in the entire world.

And then he heard the laughing.

In one motion, like someone had switched on their internal vacuums, reality came back and slammed into them like a cold, rocky avalanche. Time resumed with what felt like a massive explosion, and their other senses returned to them, like poisonous flowers blooming in their eyes, ears, and noses. With a motion which kicked them hard in the chest, the world resumed its usual course. He parted from her.

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice shaking violently. "I can't."

And as fast as he was there, he was suddenly gone again. Out of the room, out of the door, out into the open air, and away from her. She felt so cold. So alone. Solitude.


	6. Chapter 6

"And I think my brother is sleeping with my husband!" the woman screeched. "I know I never bought my husband polka-dot boxers, and I know my brother wears them. I found a pair in my closet!"

On and on and on, the woman rambled, flapping her flabby arms this way and that, shouting at the ceiling, the walls, the doctor. If Hagravens were real, this was how Dr. Stoker pictured them. If her husband was really cheating on her with any family member (last week, it was her cousin she suspected him of sleeping with – the week before that, her mother), it really didn't shock her why. She watched her with numb eyes, not really seeing her – hearing her, but not really listening. A small red line caught her eye as it lingered on the couch behind the whining woman. She smiled at it.

"Are you even listening to me?" the woman shrieked. "I bet you are sleeping with my husband too!"

"Mrs. Lancaster," Dr. Stoker sighed, closing her eyes. She inhaled deeply for a moment, collecting herself, before opening her mouth again. "I am not sleeping with your husband. Your brother is not sleeping with your husband. Your cousin isn't, your mother isn't, and before you ask, your dog isn't either. No one is sleeping with your husband – not even you. Go home, make him a nice meal, hug him, kiss him, and show emotions towards him, rather than being a fussy twat and making his life miserable. Go back to your honeymoon, even for one night. Trust me, it will do you and your husband a world of good."

The woman sat there for a long moment, mouth agape, eyes wide. Dr. Stoker kept her eyes fixed on the woman, expressionlessly. After a while, the woman closed her mouth and swallowed hard. She stood and got her coat, clasped it tightly to her chest, and nodded, heading for the door. She thanked Dr. Stoker quickly, to which the psychologist replied with a polite nod, and walked out of the office.

Dr. Stoker watched after her for a long moment, not really seeing anything. She stood from her spot, and shuffled numbly towards her desk, where she finished up a bit of paperwork, and returned her clipboard to her desk. Her mind was constantly on the night before. The sight of Cicero leaving her house in a hurry replayed over and over in her mind, taunting her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, so close to hers. His eyes looked so conflicted. He knew he was happy, but he knew he couldn't be. Then, before she knew it, he was gone.

She stood in front of her massive window, looking out into the night. The city below her was lit by headlight and street lights and lights in the neighbouring skyscrapers' windows. Despite all these dots of light illuminating the world, she felt so dark, trapped in a distinctive lack of light, lost, unable to find answers to usher her away from the depths. His story… It was obviously the ramblings of a madman. And the kiss, it was obviously a response to the moment. Right?

Behind her, the door opened. She turned on her heel, veins turning into frozen tubes with the suddenness of the sound. Her heart stopped for a moment when she saw no one at the door. She frowned, and walked to it. She stuck her head out and glanced down the hallway, finding no sign of life. She assumed that Mrs. Lancaster hadn't closed the door hard enough, and, content with that logic, stepped away from the door to close it. She shut off the lights, locked the cupboard and file cabinet doors, and prepared her bag behind her desk. Before she left the room, she looked back out into the world behind the window, sighing. What was wrong with that world out there? No one person, not even the infamous Dr. Clarice Stoker knew how to fix it – so why was she so keen on trying? Look at where it was getting her.

Behind her, another sound came. This time, she did not turn around. Instead, she listened closely to the room behind her, waiting to hear anything which might indicate another presence. Of course, it could have just been the room settling, something falling, someone in a room next door or above. But, instead, she was left alone to listen to silence.

Suddenly, she felt an entity behind her. The sudden warmth of another person surprised her, but she didn't jump or gasp. Instead, she remained completely still, waiting to see what was going to come of this other person. She felt completely helpless, but she was not afraid. For some reason, she was calm – if anything, excited: intrigued by what was happening and anticipating what was about to happen next. Her curiosity was answered the moment she felt something, or two somethings, so soft and gentle, press against the skin on her neck. She sighed deeply.

"I didn't know if I was ever going to see you again," she said, quietly.

"I don't know what brought me here," the voice replied. "But I had to come."

Clarice turned around to face him, and smiled. "I'm glad you came."

Cicero smiled contentedly. "Me too."

With that, he finished what they had started. He leaned forward and kissed her again. His lips were much more determined and prepared than they had been, and moved over hers with a sureness he did not possess last time. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, kissing her fondly. He did not allow a moment to pass where they were apart from each other. He turned her around carefully, before swinging an arm out behind her, and shoving everything off of her desk, sending a phone, picture frames, papers, books, folders, and other miscellaneous items clattering to the floor, scattering all about the side of the room. Once the desk was void of items, he slowly laid her down upon it, laying over her.

He parted from her for a moment, and looked down to his current task. His hands fumbled, shaking incredibly violently, as he tried to undo the buttons which held her torso. She watched him, smiling slightly, before taking his hands and steadying them, teaching him how to unfasten a button. He seemed bound and determined to do it, but it was incredibly amusing watching him try. Eventually, he huffed and reached downwards for what looked like his boot. From there, he pulled out an instrument – a killing instrument.

She gasped, widening her eyes. He looked to her for a short moment, his eyes assuring her that all was well, before flipping the blade expertly around his hand. The blade looked twisted and curvy, but incredibly sharp. The whole thing was a sort of metal she hadn't seen before: a strange, shiny black metal. It looked old, as though it had seen its fair share of blood in its life (but she was truly hoping it wasn't human blood). He looked to her for another short moment, before bringing the blade to her clothing. It sliced through it like a razor through warm butter, and freed what he was so longing to see. He flipped the blade over in his hand again, until it was in stabbing position, and thrust it downwards into the faux wood of the desk. He inhaled deeply before continuing his work.

She tightly gripped the bottom of his shirt, and pulled upwards, removing it from his skin. He lifted off of her to allow her to remove it. She tossed it aside and regarded him, drinking him in before allowing him to continue. She grinned at herself when she noticed his chest hair, all the way down, was the same lush red as the hair on his head. She placed her finger tip on his in the center of his chest, and followed the red line downwards, down the muscular bumps on his stomach, which enticed her further. His breath caught slightly as her fingertip teased him under the waistband of his pants. His hands still shook violently.

She paused, looking up to him. "Cicero, have you ever done this before?"

His eyes met hers, and were showing a substantial amount of apprehension, though filled with longing. He nodded briskly. "Yes, of course! Long before the Jester… Cicero's life in that regard ended once he vowed himself to the Brotherhood." His voice was shaking as much as his hands. "It's just been… So, so long…"

His eyes wandered down her body. His hands shook as he gripped the dagger beside him tightly, and brought it back to her body. He snipped her bra in half with one slice, and his breathing picked up immensely when he saw what he revealed – something he hadn't seen in far too long (at least, while they were alive). His shaking hand gently moved towards her left breast, not touching it for fear that it was going to shrivel at his touch.

"Cicero," she said, breathlessly. "Touch me."

He exhaled deeply, before allowing his hand to drop on the globe of flesh and caress it with a yearning he couldn't contain any longer. He kissed her chest, nibbling at the skin, sucking at her nipples. His hands, still holding the dagger, migrated southward, where it found its next task, and achieved it with great ease – he sliced right through the zipper and button on her pants. He lifted his torso off of her for a moment and glanced forward, before shooting the dagger to the front wall, grinning with satisfaction when he saw it stab into the drywall and not move. Then, he continued with his work.

Before they knew it, the madman and the doctor were making love on her desk top. Both entities moaned in extreme pleasure, sending the desk shuffling gradually to the wall on which the dagger still stuck – across the room. Cicero felt all of his troubles, difficulties, sadness, pain, anger, madness flow through him and push out of him with each drive he thrust into her. She absorbed it and turned it all into ecstasy. Both bodies cried out as their motions took them to a destination which hid an inevitable treasure they never wanted to find. There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and the pleasure overwhelmed them.

Afterwards, they lay beside each other on the floor under their desk, breathing heavily. She nestled into his arms, burying her head into his chest. He stroked her hair, smiling contentedly at the underside of the desk, still in the process of catching his breath. She planted soft, gentle kisses on his skin, touching the violent, red hair all over his body.

"Want to know something funny?" she said, her voice groggy.

"Always," he replied, his own voice hoarse.

"My friend told me to ask you if your hair was its natural colour. I told her it was," she said, grabbing a handful of the hair in his lower regions. "I guess I won that war."

Cicero chuckled softly, one arm behind his head so he could watch her. He yawned and closed his eyes.

"Cicero," she said, looking up to him.

"Hmm?" he replied, looking back down to her.

"Could I ever meet your mother?" she asked him, not sure what sort of answer to expect.

He paused for a long moment, contemplating this question. He weighed the pros and cons until he decided which one outweighed the other. "I suppose so," he told her. "Perhaps Cicero will introduce you two next week. Poor, sweet Mother hasn't seen anyone else in a long while. Who knows, maybe she'll speak to you!"

"Yeah," she said, sighing and closing her eyes. "Who knows?"

Wanda sat in the bar, a martini in front of her, and a beer beside her. She waited anxiously for her friend to join her. She had some huge news for her, and considering that Clarice had cancelled their daily meetings for two days in a row, she knew perfectly well that she would also have some interesting news for her. She was excited to hear it.

She nodded her head slightly with the music which played over the radio in the bar, and smiled sweetly at the individuals who passed her by. For a long while, she saw no sight of her best friend, which worried her. If ever Clarice had to cancel their rendezvous for any reason, she usually let her know. She told herself to relax, knowing that she was probably just late – that was not uncommon.

Her eyes continued to wander about the room. They caught, during their sweep of the room, a strange silhouette in the corner, watching her closely. It was hooded and dark. No solid forms of the creature were distinguishable from where Wanda sat, so it did just look like a dark blur. The only way she was sure it was watching her, were the two small glints of eyes shining through the darkness that consumed the creature. Wanda watched the eyes closely, terrified to see them move, or if the creature dared stand and approach her. She wasn't sure why, but the entity seemed to give her an incredibly negative feeling. The room around her seemed to vibrate as she watched the darkness, as though the world was becoming distorted around her and the creature. It made her feel sick.

"Wanda?" a voice snapped her out of it. She looked up to find where the voice came from. She relaxed immensely when she saw the beaming face of her best friend. "You bought me a beer? Thanks so much!"

"You're welcome," Wanda said, looking away from the corner of the room to see her friend. "What took you so long?" she looked back to the corner of the room after asking the question, and felt her heart stop almost dead, when she found the corner of the room completely empty.

"Well, I won our bet," she said, grinning.

Wanda looked to her, curiously. "What?"

Clarice blushed slightly and took a large swig of her drink. "The carpet does match the drapes."

Wanda's eyes widened and she leaned forward in shock. She laughed. "Oh my God, tell me what happened!"

"Well," Clarice said, pushing a chunk of her hair behind her ear. "He came over to my house two nights ago…" she told her best friend about Cicero going over, about him telling her his story (though leaving out the story itself), and him kissing her, then leaving quickly.

"So did you sleep with him?" Wanda asked, grinning.

"No, no," Clarice replied, before pausing and blushing violently. "Well, not then."

"You slut!" Wanda laughed loudly after Clarice went on to explain him showing up at her office, and having sex with her.

"I am not a slut!" Clarice gasped. "He stopped by my office again today and gave me the address to his house. That's why I was late. I think I'm going to meet his mother next week."

Wanda sucked in air sharply. "Ah, the famous mother," she remarked, sipping her drink. "That should be interesting. Let me know what she's like, and if she's actually as insane as she seems. You'll be stepping into Freud's fantasy, you know."

"Oh, I think there's more to the story than we think," Clarice told her. "I can't really tell you his story, and there are a lot of things about it I'm not really sure how to take. But either way, there's more to it than we expect. But, don't worry, I'll let you know."


	7. Chapter 7

His apartment building was near the edge of town in the high-budget end of the city. It was known for having whole-floor suites and large, extravagant rooms. So, either he was incredibly rich, some kind of heir, or the fact that he had a pocket full of golden coins which he got appraised was true.

She stared at the extravagant building, feeling so small in comparison. She pressed the button for the floor on which she had told her he was, and waited to hear his voice. Eventually, there came a muffled shouting through the speaker.

"Yes, yes, hello, hello!" shouted the voice. "Clarice Stoker?"

"Yes, Cicero, it is me," she said into the speaker, laughing lightly.

"Ah! Good!" he shouted. "Can you hear me okay? Poor Cicero doesn't know how to use this thing!"

She laughed and took a step away from the speaker. "Yes, Cicero, I can hear you fine."

"Good!" there was a pause. "…Now what do I do?"

"Press a button on the speaker to unlock the door," she informed him, still grinning.

"Oh!" then he went quiet. "A button… A button… Ah!"

Suddenly, the door began to buzz, informing her that it was unlocked and she could enter. She, still laughing, walked through the door, excited to see his apartment. The lobby was massive and organized, incredibly clean. She smiled politely at the woman sitting at the front desk, who was doing monotonous paperwork. The whole place reminded her of a hotel, but considering the extreme size of the place, it was no wonder why there needed to be a woman at a front desk for constant support.

The whole place seemed to be themed red and gold. There stood a massive-mouthed fireplace on one wall, waiting for usage. There was a bar and grill in a connecting room that was too dark to see properly from where she stood. In front of the door, across the room, sat the large dual elevators, with doors so tall it looked as though it wanted to swallow whole all those who entered, and drop them down its massive gullet. Below her feet, were faux-wooden tiles and a large, oriental carpet that was soft and vacuumed. Large, winged chairs and two couches squatted in the center of the room near the fireplace, adorned with decorative pillows and comfortable fabrics. The place did look quite homey, but everything seemed to be too forced and formal. She knew the fireplace wasn't real, the chairs were vinyl, the stone was plated cement, and nothing seemed truly legitimate. She frowned, and walked to the large elevators.

She took the claustrophobic moving room to the fourth floor, and emerged into a long, narrow hallway that seemed to mimic the lobby downstairs. The carpet was a bit older, but still the same shade of red. The light fixtures were sconces holding black lanterns containing yellow light bulbs. The walls themselves were horizontally half red and half white, though the white and crown mouldings seemed to show too much age and dust. The entire floor contained six doors, leading to six massive rooms, and Cicero's was one on the end.

She stopped in front of his door, and knocked energetically. On the other side of the door, he heard a voice speaking. Cicero's voice. She frowned, listening closely. He seemed to be talking to someone, but no one was answering him. She couldn't make out many words, other than "be nice" and "so pretty" and the like. She frowned, when the voice seemed to go quieter to what sounded like sing-song humming and incoherent whispers. She moved away from the door and knocked again, a bit harder. All at once, the sounds on the other side stopped completely. She heard what sounded like a massive set of doors closing and latching, before the door in front of her was yanked open.

"Clarice!" Cicero said, enthusiastically. "Please, come in, come in!"

She smiled politely at him, before entering into his house. She looked around. The first thing that came to her mind was how oddly empty the e

ntire apartment was. It was a very open concept, with everything but the bedroom, and bathroom being all one room, separated by arches. He had one couch and one chair in front of a coffee table, furnishings she was almost positive were included in the apartment. There was a wall unit, which was completely empty with naught but a TV that was covered in dust, suggesting its distinct lack of use. There were shelves and drawers which didn't contain anything but phonebooks and other miscellaneous items that came with the apartment. In the kitchen, she could see it was a little more full, but still not a fully-stocked kitchen as one would expect when thinking of a kitchen. The majority of the room was a dark brown colour with hardwood floors and a few oriental area rugs. The only doors were the one she came through, the one to the bathroom, and the one to the bedroom, which was notably closed.

"Cicero really isn't known for his interior decorating skills," he told her. His voice echoed through the emptiness. "But he doesn't spend much room in the majority of the house, and he never has guests, so why must there be things to look at? Please, have a seat."

She removed her shoes, and made her way into the living room. She glanced around the room, noting its evident lack of anything decorative other than with what it undoubtedly had when he moved in. There were several candles in small holders on the tables and shelves that were spilling over with much use. Other that those dying candles, was one thing, which was curious in comparison with the rest of the room. In a corner of the room, hidden behind a few things, was a picture frame bracket on which hung upon a hanger, an outfit. It was a peculiar outfit, and seemed to be well worn with years and years of usage. The reddish-suit was patched and repaired with different colours, making it seem more complicated than it was. Clasped buckles and tassels hung from it. The entire thing looked clean, though it didn't look worn in a little while. Beside the outfit, on a shelf, was an odd hat with two points beside each other: a jester's hat.

Cicero walked in the room with a rum and coke for himself, and a beer for her. She forced herself to look away from the suit to offer him a smile and take the drink. He sat beside her, sipped his own beverage, and look to where she was previously looking. He grinned when he saw what her eyes were upon.

"You found Cicero's suit," he told her. "It's the suit Cicero used to wear in the Brotherhood. The suit he came to this strange world in. That's Cicero's jester suit."

She glanced to him. "It looks well worn."

Cicero giggled. "Cicero never took it off! Well, unless to wash it, of course."

She frowned, glancing at it deeper than she had prior. Her eyebrows furrowed. She found, embedded and bled into the threads of the suit, mahogany stains. They dappled the lapel, the sleeves, several places on the chest, and a strange streak from the bottom left corner all the way up to the top right. "Those stains… They're awfully dark on the red. Spaghetti sauce or something?"

Cicero tilted his head slightly and regarded her strangely. He grinned slowly and shook his head, giggling slightly. "No, of course not," he told her, looking to his suit. "They're blood stains."

She felt her blood run cold in her veins. She couldn't help but widen her eyes in slight fear, staring at the stains on the suit with a completely different set of eyes. What had she gotten herself into? With one swift motion, the entire reality of the situation hit her hard in the face. She was playing the psychologist role to this obviously insane individual. Before she knew it, he was kissing her. Then, suddenly, she was sleeping with him. Now, she was in his house, alone, with an obviously insane individual. She suddenly felt manipulated, as though this was the idea the entire time. She could read the headlines on newspapers the next morning: "NAÏVE PSYCHOLOGIST MURDERED BY MADMAN IN HIS APARTMENT: She Didn't Even See it Coming when she Slept with Him!" she shuddered.

"Um, maybe I should go," she said, standing and placing the beer on the table.

He watched her, confused by the suddenness of her motions. "But why? You just got here? Did Cicero say something?" he pretended to slap himself across his face. "There! Cicero is punished!" she gathered her things and walked to the door. "Wait, please!" he stood and grabbed her arm, stopping her. She looked down to him, frowning frightfully. "Please," he repeated. "You haven't even met Mother yet."

She stopped. The mention of the mother peaked her curiosity. She knew that if she was staying, it would be for the wrong reasons, but that didn't seem to matter at that point. She truly felt as though she was in danger, but the thought of seeing something that could help her cure the man's mental illness was enough to want to make her stay. She turned to the bedroom whose door was closed, and imagined an old woman, eyes closed, a series of tubes and wires implanted into her, keeping her alive. She could see her looking like death. The thought frightened her – though perhaps she did wake up.

"You're right," she said to Cicero. "I'm sorry."

He smiled and clapped enthusiastically, setting his drink down, and standing to approach the bedroom. She gave him a wide berth as he headed to the room, and watched as he stopped at the door, turning to face her. He frowned and regarded her carefully for another short moment.

"Mother isn't used to company, you see," he told her, matter-of-factly. "You need to understand things about Mother. She is so old, old, old, but more beautiful than anything in the entire world – Tamriel or this place. Please, be gentle with her. Cicero is her Keeper, you understand. Only he is allowed to touch her and keeper her like the old tomes have dictated."

"I understand," she told him. The anticipation was beginning to grow within her. It was strange how an old woman could have such a vicious influence on this man, and make her so excited to see this elderly character. It would allow his story to make full sense to her, once she saw the mother – the other main character in the story.

That's when Cicero nodded and gripped the doorknob tightly. He watched it for a short moment, before gradually turning it, listening to it closely, in love with the sound of the tumbler turning, the apparatuses spinning within the mechanism, the sound of metal scraping upon metal. Once the doorknob was turned to its limit, he pressed his body against the door, and gradually applied weight until it began to open with ease. Within the room, she received a gust of the smell of oils and burning candles assaulting her olfactory glands. She leaned to the side to get a better look at what was in the room, and another gust hit her, but this time, it was a heavy heat, as though the humidity was up in that room for preference – or preservation.

He looked to her for one more glance, before opening the door completely, and stepping in. Clarice paused for a moment to gather her thoughts away from her wandering mind, and focusing them all on the task at hand, something else she had taught herself to do for years and years, especially when she was told her husband was going to die of terminal pancreatic cancer, while she still had to work to provide money for his hospice expenses.

Her eyes hungrily stared into the room, and her legs, as though of their own accord, stepped forward, desperate to enter the room and reveal the truth that was within, and thus explaining everything she was suspecting – or disproving everything she thought was real. The moment she saw what was within, her face contorted to an extreme variety of bewilderment.

In the center of the room, surrounded by burning candles and shelves, which were stuffed with different bottles of oils and all sorts of old papers and notes that lined the walls, was what looked to be an iron maiden. It was tall on its own, towering over her, but was also standing upon a wax-caked pedestal which, especially in the light casted by the flickering candles, seemed massive and ominous. She furrowed her brow, watching it, thinking that there was no way something would be inside of that thing. If so, it would have definitely been more of a casket than anything.

Cicero walked to the front of the thing, and unhinged an internal latch, which allowed for the two doors to be opened. He huffed as he pulled them back. Loud moans of ancient hinges protesting their involuntary movements erupted in the room, until it stopped as it was fully opened, revealing the oddity within. Actually, oddity was far too weak a word. Clarice was at a complete lack of words.

Hidden behind these massive, heavy doors, was, essentially, a corpse. It was well preserved, dark, well-oiled, but incredibly dead. It lacked eyes, lips, muscular structure, and was essentially dark skin upon bone. Its arms were crossed in front of itself, its head tilted on one side of the coffin, completely leaning sideways, as though for everlasting comfort. The strangest thing about it, was its skin colour – the strange darkness to it that seemed too inhuman, even for a corpse, and its ear – it was pointed at the tip.

The first thing she told herself to comfort her buzzing mind, was that it had to be a prop for something. There was no way that was real. Again, this madman was testing her gullibility. But when she looked to Cicero, she noticed him looking up to her with the fondest eyes, as though she was the only thing in the entire world that mattered. She looked back to the corpse.

"I'm going to go fetch our drinks," he told her, walking to the doors. "You may say hello, but please do not touch her."

With that, he was gone. Clarice felt a heavy darkness weighing down upon her, emanating from the corpse in front of her. She knew it had to be a fake. If not, it was dead. But those hollow eyes, that deadness of the entire creature, the lack of motion… Despite all that, she still felt watched. She felt as though there was something staring at her through that form. Watching her. trying to communicate with her. At that moment, she was all ears, aching… to listen.

"You know you are driving him insane, right?" she said to it. She wasn't sure what made her feel inclined to speak to the thing, but the presence she felt from it told her that she needed to speak to it – to communicate with it. "His mind is completely lost because of you."

"iYes/i," a voice suddenly came to her. It filled her mind to the very top of her skull, stimulating each lobe in her brain in some way. She shuddered, feeling cold fingers falling down her spine. She was forced to close her eyes. When she opened them, however, she was suddenly suspended in mid-air. She felt enclosed by a cold darkness, complete nothingness surrounding her – a void. In front of her, in the midst of the darkness, was the corpse, but she looked so much more alive. She had a glow to her, a life. She stared at her through hollow eyes which seemed to be filled with more life. She illuminated with life – a life which did not fill her physical form, but was there, in the void, speaking to her. "iYes, my Cicero. He is so faithful to me. My dear, sweet, wonderful Cicero. I will not share him, mortal. You have gone as far as you ever will with him. Know this: I will not share him./i"

Those last words seemed to be filled with an uncomfortable poison. With the injection of those venomous words at the end, she was unleashed from the suspension, and sent falling from the void. Before she knew it, she was standing back in the warm room, staring at the corpse of the Night Mother, left to her own devices. The last words haunted her. They were drenched in such a threatening tone that she no longer received such a positive feeling from the corpse.

"…Clarice?" she heard a voice behind her.

She turned to face Cicero, her eyes wide, face pale. She tried to collect herself, but her hands were shaking and she felt ill. She looked up to him, speculatively. "Did you drug my drink?"

Cicero widened his eyes, eyebrows furrowed. "Whatever do you mean?"

"The Night Mother… Came alive," she said, glancing back to the corpse. "She spoke to me."

She turned back to look at Cicero, and was startled by what she saw. He stood there, eyes incredibly wide, mouth agape, unmoving. His hands holding the beverages shook slightly as he took a step towards her. It was as though some great epiphany hit him like a massive bag of cement blocks.

"Did… Did she speak the words?" he said, his voice quivering.

"The words?" Clarice frowned, looking back to the casket for a moment, before looking back at him. "Well, she said that she refused to share you. I think that's some kind of threat."

"Did she speak the words!" he said, taking another step towards her, eyes longing. "Anything about Darkness? And Silence?" his voice cracked as desperation spewed out of him.

Clarice frowned and furrowed her brow, before shaking her head. "No. She just threatened me." She turned to look back at the coffin and the corpse within for a moment. As she turned, she heard the sound of a bottle and a glass falling and shattering. This made her swiftly turn her head back to look at Cicero. Before her eyes could find Cicero, she was suddenly leaning backwards slightly, one arm around her neck holding her completely still and unable to struggle, with the black metal blade from before, pressed against her neck. She heard Cicero's heavy breathing in her ear.

"Liar," he seethed. "Blasphemer. You want me to leave my beloved Mother. I never will. Never will! You deserve to die, deceiver. How dare you try to separate faithful Cicero with his beloved Mother?" he spat with each word he hissed into her ear. "She is all he has left!"

"Cicero!" Clarice gagged, struggling for breath. "Listen to me!"

"iNo!/i" he shouted. "Never again will you be Cicero's Listener! He should have known better than to trust you!"

"Cicero, wait!" she choked. "Don't do this! I want to be with you! I want to help you! I care about you, Cicero!"

"No!" he shouted into her ear. He pressed the blade harder onto her neck. She felt it slip underneath the tender skin, unleashing the red beads beneath, which trailed down her skin, leaving behind pathways of ruby. "You are not allowed to say that!"

"Please, Cicero," she felt her breath leaving her, struggling under his arm, giving way to the darkness with threatened to consume her. She could no longer gasp for breaths, for no air came. "Please… Don't do this…"

Cicero watched the life slip from her eyes for a long moment, glaring at her skin. He saw her lips, finding them dry and purple from the lack of breath. Normally, he wanted desperately to see that again, see the life leave the flesh. But at this time, all he could think of was those lips upon his, warm and gentle, comfortable. For the first time in too long, he had been comfortable. His arm shook with inner conflict as the struggle left her. He was brought back to the moment before his death, when the prophecy could have killed him, but spared him. The faithful Listener. He closed his eyes, struggling with the thoughts running through his mind. He couldn't do it, he told himself. Not to his Listener.

He moved his arm away from her, and she fell to the floor, coughing uncontrollably. He stood over her, watching her, clasping his ebony blade tightly in his white-knuckled fist. Both his hands were shaking violently, as were his legs, and his head was pounding. He didn't move for a long while, watching her, wondering if she was going to survive.

After a long coughing fit, she carefully climbed back to her feet, and refused to make eye contact with him. Cicero knew that he could not continue with this. It was ruining him. Why should he care about trying to fit into this foreign society, when all that obviously mattered to him was getting back home, where he could find the real Listener, and be back home with those he knew, and trusted.

"Leave," he hissed, his voice groggy. "Don't return."

Clarice, without saying anything, picked through the broken glass, before collecting her things, and walking out of the house. Cicero watched after her, his entire body shaking. He could only envision their moment that night a week ago. He could only taste her lips upon his, feel the comfort she provided him. She turned and faced the Mother. She stared at him with dead eyes.

He launched himself at her, ebony blade in hand. He leaned against her, holding the blade to her dead neck, grinding his teeth. He seethed into the Dark Elf's dead, pointed ear.

"Why do you do this to me?" he begged, his voice shaking as a sob choked him. "Poor Cicero - iI/i have been inothing/i but faithful to you! Why am I treated like this? Why?" he pressed the blade into her dead throat, and no life blood fell from the wound – just dust, and oil. "I… I hate you…" he sobbed, not sure he knew exactly what he was saying. "I hate you!"

Suddenly, the doors of the casket closed, locking him in with the Night Mother. He immediately felt claustrophobic in there with the corpse he had known so well. He watched the pitch black area where he knew her face was, now more terrified than furious.

"iCicero/i," said a voice. It was a dull hissing, that filled his mind. As it was spoken, the visage of the Mother was illuminated. He felt his entire body go numb. After the word was spoken, the doors shot open, and he was tossed out of the coffin. He looked up to the body, hands shaking violently, dropping his ebony blade far from his reach. He crawled desperately, on all fours, towards the corpse, staring up at her.

"Mother?" he said, his voice shuddering. "Is that your voice I hear?"

No voice came from the corpse for a long moment, but he begged for the sound again. It was like something he had never heard in his entire life. It was a sound he would kill for – and he has. He whimpered as he begged for forgiveness from the corpse. He didn't know what he was saying, he told her. He pleaded for forgiveness from his Matron, not knowing if she would ever allow such a thing for him after what he said.

"iCicero/i," the voice came again. Cicero began to weep at the sound of something he had longed to hear for years. It was as though he was starved for so long, from all food and drink, and suddenly, he was given a taste of something he craved his whole life, but never knew, in his dying breath. He bowed down in front of her, begging to her for something, anything, to be spoken. "iTake me home, Cicero./i" the voice came again. "iTake me home./i"

Cicero began to sob uncontrollably. He knew he was not the Listener, because the sacred words were never spoken. He curled himself into a ball, the only words he knew he would ever hear from his beloved Mother running through his mind constantly. He curled himself into the fetal position, holding his knees tightly to his chest.

"I don't know how," he sobbed into his knees, his whole body shaking. "I don't know how!"

There, in that position, the only words he would ever hear from the Night Mother embedded in his mind for the rest of his life, he rocked back and forth, until an uncontrollable laughter rung in his mind. He couldn't help but burst out laughing from the sound of it, until his consciousness slipped away, leaving him alone with the laughter.


	8. Chapter 8

Cicero sat on the windowsill in his apartment, looking out to the world below him. It was so unfamiliar, so strange, so far from home. He held his ebony dagger in his hand, tossing it from his left to his right, weighing it, examining it. A tiny sliver of blood clung to its black, razor-sharp blade. Dr. Clarice Stoker's blood. The only person in the world, this one and his home, who tried endlessly to help him. And what did he do? He attacked her. He may have even killed her. She was the first person whose blood his blade had tasted, that he didn't want to squeeze the life out of.

He sighed heavily, ten thousand things running through his mind. Accusations, blames, self-loathing… laughter. He glared down at the blade, his lips pulling back over his teeth like a snarling skeever. He looked back out the open window, pulled his arm back, and shot the thing, as far as he could, out the window. In the early morning sunlight, he saw a glint of ruby reflect the light, before the entire blade disappeared out of his sight.

Clarice watched herself in the mirror, her mascara sending dark, black lines trailing down her face. She sniffed, lifting her bruised neck carefully, dabbing gently with a hydrogen peroxide-drenched cotton ball at the gushing wound on her throat. She inhaled sharply when she felt the sting of the peroxide cleaning the wound. A spurt of blood launched forward, spilling over the cotton ball, and onto her fingers. She felt the sticky blood coat her skin and run down her neck. She cursed slightly, before pressing a damp cloth on her wound. She sighed, feeling her head spinning with the dramatic loss of blood. What was she thinking?

Suddenly, there came a knock at the door. She sighed and called to her door, asking who it was. The polite voice of her best friend replied with her own name, before she opened the door on her own.

"Where are you?" Wanda called to her.

"Don't come in," Clarice insisted, her voice shaking. "You're going to throw up."

Wanda followed the voice of her best friend to her bathroom. She tried the handle, but found the room locked. She pounded hard on the door. "Let me in, Clarice! Seriously!"

Clarice sighed, flinching as she felt her bruised neck strain with the motion. Last week, when she met with her best friend, she was told that Wanda and her boyfriend were having a baby. The best part, was that Clarice was going to be the baby's godmother. They hadn't known the sex of the baby, nor even how far along they were yet, but the tests she took all said positive. This was quite the reality check for Clarice. Wanda was about five years younger than Clarice, but they met in college, roomed together for a long time until Wanda met her boyfriend, and they moved in together. Clarice went on to become a psychologist, whereas Wanda became a high school social sciences teacher. They stayed best friends throughout their lives. Clarice married Pat at 30, became pregnant at 32, and lost the baby due to Anencephaly. Shortly afterwards, Pat was diagnosed with cancer, and died about a month after the diagnosis. Clarice, now 39, was mostly alone, until meeting the man who nearly killed her. Wanda, meanwhile, was not married to her boyfriend, due to expenses and morals, but, at age 34, were finally going to have their first baby. They were going to live happily ever after, together – Clarice would always be alone.

Wanda was much younger, thinner, prettier than Clarice. People loved being around her, due to her fantastic sense of humour, her party-hardy attitude, and the millions of friends she had. Clarice was a boring psychologist who was never as thin and pretty like the other girls by whom she was surrounded. Where Wanda would go out and dye her hair blue and pink in all strange styles and shapes, Clarice always had the same general hairstyle, always less colourful clothes and the same boring attitude. She was shier than Wanda, more cautious than Wanda, and although she was unorthodox in her methods of therapy, she was often just considered "sarcastic" or "original" rather than "fun" and "different". They were so different. Clarice had much less to live for than Wanda – Wanda was, essentially, the only thing keeping her grounded.

"Clarice, I'm not kidding!" Wanda pounded on the door. "What is going on in there?"

Clarice's hand shook as she pressed the blood-soaked cloth to her neck, feeling her muscle capacity dwindling. She was soon going to be unable to hold it at her neck, and may bleed out before her blood got the chance to coagulate. She knew very well that she needed help. She leaned forward and unlocked the door. Wanda shoved through the door, and stopped dead at the threshold.

"Oh my god," she said, her voice shaking. She raised her shaking hands to her mouth. "What the fuck happened to you?"

Clarice shook as she looked up to her friend, her face pale. She offered a weak smile, pressing the cloth hard on her neck. Down her arm, the floor below her, and her clothes were all covered in blood, as well as a series of cotton balls and cloths. "Nothing. I'm fine."

"No you're not," Wanda said, walking to her friend, and forcing her to her feet. Clarice's legs shook underneath her and could not hold their own weight. Wanda carefully brought her best friend towards the door of the bathroom. "You need to go to the hospital."

"No," Clarice said, her voice weak. "I can't. They're going to try to question me. I can't tell them what happened."

"I don't care; you're going to bleed out otherwise!" Wanda dragged her to the door to her apartment. "You can tell me what really happened on the way there, and we'll come up with a good lie."

Cautiously, they managed to get the weak woman into the car, and she raced to the hospital. Wanda asked Clarice constantly what happened, mostly just to try to keep her conscious. Clarice eventually told her basically what happened – how she went to Cicero's house, how he attacked her but let her leave. When Wanda asked why he attacked her, Clarice just shrugged, and said that he was completely insane and the smallest things could trigger an unpredictable reaction. She informed her that she think she was drugged, because she saw some strange things while meeting the Mother.

"We need to call the police," Wanda insisted. "Have that bastard arrested and put away where he can't harm anyone. You knew this would happen!"

"I know," Clarice sighed. "I know… But we can't call them. They won't understand. He'll only go even crazier without his Mother. He's not a threat as long as he's with Her and nothing is tampering with that."

Eventually, they made it to the hospital. Wanda carefully pulled her friend from the car, and practically carried her into the hospital. The nurse behind the desk gasped when she saw the woman with the large gash in her throat, and immediately called a doctor. One doctor, who had been performing a routine check-up to some random patient, apologised to said patient, before running out with a mobile bed, and carefully laid Clarice down on it. Wanda assured her that she would take care of Clarice's paperwork, since the doctor insisted that Wanda wait in the waiting room.

Clarice stared up at the ceiling passing by her. The fluorescent lights she walked down, brought her to the hallway leading to her office. At the end of the hallway, she saw Cicero standing there, waiting for her. She tried to stop moving towards it, but she was unable to stop. She floated down the hallway, towards the madman. She couldn't to stop herself from walking directly through the open door, leading into her office. There, she saw Cicero standing at the window, holding a clipboard, facing outside. She watched as he slowly turned to face her. He had a massive, Cheshire grin on his face, glinting in the moonlight from the outside. She involuntarily took slow, gradual steps towards him. The closer she got to him, the more she saw his insanity. She noticed blood drenching his lips, his chin, his neck, all the way down his shirt. He stared at her hungrily.

"Dr. Stoker," he said, his voice seething like when he whispered in his ear. He held the clipboard at his chest. It, too, was blood-soaked. "Please. Have a seat."

"Dr. Stoker?" a voice cut through the strange place. Cicero began to spin and distort, as though falling down a drain. The world followed him, until it was replaced with a steady reality – her, in a hospital bed, looking up to the masked face of a doctor. She relaxed, knowing all was well again. She was safe. "Can you hear me?"

She tried to open her mouth to speak, but she couldn't. She felt completely numb from the eyes down. Nothing hurt, but nothing felt good either. She was completely unfeeling. Her head spun slightly, but it was a sort of soothing, pacifying feeling that made her just feel good. She blinked slowly and managed to muster a slow nod.

"Good," the doctor replied. "You've been asleep for a while. You're under a small dose of morphine right now, just so you don't hurt too much. We had to administer a blood transfusion, since you lost a lot of blood, but you'll definitely make it. We've stitched up the gash on your neck, and although there may be quite the scar in your future, it will heal fine. You could probably leave tomorrow, but we're going to keep you for one more night, just to make sure. Sometimes your body will reject the blood…"

His voice trailed off in her mind. She felt her eyes slowly closing. That's right… She remembered. She was attacked. She saw the Night Mother in her mind when she closed her eyes. She saw the dead eyes staring at her, her lack of lips, her dark skin on dead bones. Slowly, however, the face of the Night Mother began to fade away, but was replaced with something else.

She saw a beautiful, bodacious woman standing there. Incredibly red, pouting lips sat under a perked, perfect nose, between two large, slanted, almond-shaped, unnaturally red eyes which were covered by long, curled lashes. Her hair was long, black, voluminous, like black fluid falling in low gravity down from her head and onto her shoulders. She had dark, thin, arched eyebrows, high, prominent cheekbones, and was just overall gorgeous. She had a strange sort of dark-gray skin, and long, pointed ears. She regarded Clarice with arms crossed, her slender fingers tapping her arms idly, watching her.

"Hello, Clarice," she said. Her voice was like melted caramel dripping from her perfect mouth. A glint of pointed, pearly teeth could be seen when she spoke. Her voice filled Clarice's mind, but was much less cold, so much more gentle and warm.

"Night Mother?" she replied, her voice groggy.

"It seems you are in a bit of a predicament," the Night Mother told her, grinning slightly. "My beloved Cicero can be a bit… touchy."

"Why are you doing this to me…?" Clarice asked.

"Well," said the bodacious woman. "Put it this way. You are playing with one of my toys, and I don't like to share. Stick that in your psychologist pipe and smoke it."

Clarice clenched her eyes shut tightly and struggled against the invisible bonds in which she felt tied. She writhed in her trapped position, feeling helpless for whatever else the Night Mother had planned for her.

"No," she said, struggling. She felt invisible ropes tied tightly around her wrist, snaking themselves around her waist and legs, holding her tight. "No, you're just a figment of a morphine-induced high. That's all you are."

"Believe what you want," she said, smirking. "But… As utterly painful as this is to say, I need your help with something. You see, I am allowed to say a total of thirteen words to any Keeper. At all. Ever. That's a little tidbit they left out in the Keeper Tomes. Anyway, I wasted nine last night. Basically, I'll need you to be my little carried pigeon – just don't make me have to shoot you down."

Clarice turned her head and looked to the Night Mother. Her red eyes seemed sincere, though dark and still conniving. There was no way she could trust this woman (if she really was a woman) full-heartedly without questioning anything.

"What is the message?" Clarice asked, suspicious.

"Well, it isn't just one message, but a series of messages I'll need you to convey over a span of time," the Night Mother told her. "You see, I know how to return home. But, obviously, I'm not about to waste my last words on something that could be snipped at the bud right away."

"Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but you're beloved Cicero and I aren't really on the best of terms right now," Clarice said, drenching her voice in as much venom as possible.

The Mother's lips spread into a curt smirk, until it gradually spread into a grin, and eventually into a large smile, before she began laughing. "You're not so bad, mortal. Nevertheless, what you mentioned does present an issue. But I have five words for you that will remedy it right away. Now, when you get out of this gods-awful medical institution, you need to go back to his apartment, and say these words: Darkness Rises when Silence Dies. Say those words, and he'll be all over you like moss on rock in no time," she sneered. "Good luck."

With that, the Mother disappeared from her sight. Clarice's eyes felt heavy, and she allowed them to close. She decided not to think much about these delusions for right now, since there were more pressing matters – such as sleep, and recovery. Perhaps she would venture back to the apartment, speak the words to him, and see what happens. No, curiosity killed the Clarice. She couldn't risk seeing that madman again, especially when he warned her not to return.

Consciousness hung on a fragile rope, and she willed it to snap. She wanted to drift away into a more pleasant world without a talking corpse, a madman, a black blade, and psychology. She allowed herself to fall into a warm, comfortable unconsciousness, which cradled her gently, rocking her back and forth until the world around her disappeared.

Wanda sat beside her best friend's bed, watching her with sleep. She glared at nothing, the thought of a person harming her friend like he had, and not being punished was gnawing at her. Wanda King was not the sort of person to allow such a thing to transpire under her watch. She remained at her friend's bedside until visiting hours were over. As she left the hospital, she shuffled through her massive purse for the shred of paper Clarice had given her, which contained the address of Cicero's abode. She then dove into her car, quickly called her boyfriend and told him that she would he home a bit late and that she loved him very much, before driving into the expensive end of town, on a hunt.

Eventually she found the apartment, and stormed into it, to the elevator, and into the hallway where she knew, according to the shred of paper, that Cicero's apartment was. She paused in her marching down the hallway, when she noticed something strange at the end of the hall. There was an absurd blackness there, consuming the end of the hallway with an unnatural negativity and darkness. Within the darkness, she could make out a slight silhouette which stood completely still, facing her. Inside that silhouette, she could see the glint of two eyes watching her. She felt a hunger from the strange thing, but it did not move nor look away from her. She felt completely frozen solid in her spot.

Gradually, carefully, she took a step forward, hoping it was just the lights out in that end of the hall that was playing tricks on her eyes. The closer she got, however, the more of the dark silhouette she could make out, and the more alive the eyes began to seem. They followed her as she walked, not removing themselves from her for a moment, not even to blink. She knew she recognised the thing from the bar the week before. The closer she became, the more negativity she felt radiating off of it, and the more she just wanted to turn around and run away. For some reason, her legs wouldn't allow her to do so. Instead, she continued to step forward.

Suddenly, she came to an abrupt stop when she noticed the black figure take a step towards her. She widened her eyes, watching it. After what felt like the most agonising moment she had ever experienced, it took another step forward. And another. She couldn't make out any distinctive figures, except that it was probably hooded, and cloaked to prevent recognition. Instead, the figure was ominous and dark, threatening her wordlessly.

She took the hint that she was not welcomed there, and abandoned her plot. She took a step backwards away from the creature, afraid to turn her back. The thing stopped moving when she began again, and she assumed that all it wanted was for her to leave. So, she began to carefully turn away from it, keeping an eye over her shoulder just in case. As she did so, she began to shuffle through her bag again, and pulled out a Compaq and opened it so she could watch behind herself through the mirror. Her hands shook as she lifted it. When she finally steadied it, she could see the creature as she continued to walk out. However, she saw the thing continue to approach her, faster and faster. Wanda abandoned the Compaq, dropping it to the floor, and began to run back to the elevator. She only managed to make it a few steps before she heard a high-pitched screech, and felt a huge body collide with her, knocking her down. She struggled with it, trying to remove herself from it, but it was to no avail. It was much stronger than her. She couldn't fight it. She forced out a scream for help, but it was cut short to a gurgling clamour when blood began to rise in her throat.


	9. Chapter 9

Clarice gathered her things in a bag the hospital had provided for her. She had to be careful to not tear the stitches which held her neck shut, so her head moved very limitedly (the thick bandage which covered her throat also impaired her neck movements). She had only spent the night in the hospital, but was awake most of the night due to having slept the entire day beforehand. Instead, she watched a few movies on the television, gathered her notes from her job in effort to make sense of some of her clients' problems (most of them superfluous), and tried to sleep without much success. That morning, she dedicated the time before she was allowed to leave, to calling her clients and cancelling appointments, due to "a severe injury". Some of them burst into tears, some became outraged, but most understood.

She tossed her notebook into her bag. Behind her, there was a light knock on her door. She turned around just in time for a grave-looking doctor to enter the room. She smiled politely, lifting her bag off of the ground. The doctor walked in, holding a clipboard to his chest. She frowned slowly when she noticed his severe expression.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Clarice Stoker?" the doctor said. Clarice nodded slowly. The doctor sighed. "You might want to sit down." She did not move. The doctor continued. "You know who Wanda King is?"

"Yes," she said, her heart beat picking up, her adrenaline coursing. "What the Hell happened to her?"

"She put you as her emergency contact," the doctor said, glancing down to the clipboard. "I'm sorry, but… She was killed."

Clarice's eyes widened and her vision blurred. She stared at a fixed spot in the room. Eventually, her legs began to weaken and shake, before letting her go, causing her to collapse. The doctor ran to her and carefully brought her back to her feet, and sat her down onto the hospital bed. She was too cold, too numb to cry. All her brain and mouth allowed her, was to speak small sentences in order to answer questions in an effort to understand what was happening.

"How?" she managed to say, her voice so low it was practically inaudible.

"I'm afraid I don't know the details," the doctor told her, still holding her in place. "She was found in some apartment building. She had a piece of paper with address to one of the rooms in her hand, but apparently she never got there…" he looked down to her sincerely. "The police were wondering if you happen to recognise the weapon. Would you like me to describe it?"

She looked up to him, her eyes wet. The doctor's voice was somewhat soothing and gradually brought her back to reality, where the harshness and pain waited for her, and overwhelmed her. She sniffed and nodded.

The doctor nodded in response. "Some strange black, curvy blade, harder than steel and sharper than a razor blade. It's somewhat of a dagger, looks almost like a prop for something, but far too hard and sharp for that. Does it sound at all familiar to you?"

Clarice stared forward again, her mind filled with loathing. She seethed internally, scowling slightly as she stared at the wall so hard, she felt as though she could blow a hole right through it, just with her gaze. The ebony dagger.

"No," she said, through her teeth, lying to the doctor. "I have no idea. Can I please be alone?"

The doctor nodded and stood from the bed, before walking to the door, glancing back at her with slight confusion, before walking out of the room.

Clarice knew perfectly well what happened. She went to perform the role Wanda usually performs, which is to defend Clarice. Fucking Cicero… That goddamn bastard. Yes, she would return to his apartment. Yes, she would speak those words that the Night Mother said to her in a dream. Even if he doesn't recognise them, he crossed a boundary – no, he sliced right through the boundary. He massacred the boundary. Regardless if he wanted to see her again, he was going to see her again. She needed resolution. She taught her clients to avoid revenge, since catharsis doesn't do much for stress relief and anger. But this was different – so, so different.

She picked up her wallet from her bag, and opened it. Inside, in the place where one's ID should go, was a small picture, taken in one of those booths, of her and her best friend, both giving the middle finger and sticking their tongues out. Below that, was a candid picture of the two of them laughing. She smiled and laughed slightly at the photo, before the memory came rushing back to her, causing an emotional outburst. She broke down into a fit of sobbing, clutching the wallet tightly to her chest. She bent over it, holding it tightly in her white-knuckled fists, screaming in a mixture of rage and agony. Since he couldn't take Clarice's life, he took her best friend's, and thereby took whatever essence Clarice had left. How did he know that? How did he know how much she meant to her?

The bar. It hit her. He watched them together, and recognised her when he saw her, before attacking her like the madman he is. On her schedule, then, everything else that meant something to her had to wait. She needed to take care of some business first.

No more idle chats for hours. No more beer and martinis every night. No more Wanda and Clarice. All that history, that friendship, that love they shared, brought to an abrupt end. Now, she was alone. Clarice. All alone.

With a madman.

She sat in her car for a few hours, staring at the massive apartment building in which Cicero resided. A million thoughts ran through her head. A madman without a job or a friend in the world would not be missed, right? More than that, he wouldn't be noticed as having disappeared until he is long overdue in bills. On the other hand, however, what about when he was found? Would she be a suspect? Could she clean the scene of the crime without being noticed?

No. She shook her head. That was insane. She couldn't kill a man. But he killed Wanda in cold blood for trying to defend her. Maybe even he deserved to die. He was a murderer. However, did she want to join him?

She glanced to her glove compartment. She was allowed a single firearm to be on her person in case a client flipped his or her lid. She reached forward and opened the glove compartment, and stared at the pistol within it. This particular weapon was usually in her office in the desk with her clipboard. It never had to be used prior to this moment. In fact, she rarely touched the thing, for fear of its power. But, at this point, what did she have to lose? She reached for it, and grabbed it.

It felt heavy in her hands. Cold. Unfeeling. She weighed it, tossing it from hand to hand, watching it as though it had a mind of its own. She glanced forward for a moment, before slipping the thing into her bag, inhaling deeply through her nose, and exhaling slowly through her mouth, before leaving the car and emerging into the apartment building through a door held open for her.

She allowed the elevator to swallow her whole, before taking her up to the right floor. She stepped out of the mouth of the elevator, and shuffled, with shaking legs, down the hallway. The hallway seemed to extend the closer she got to the respective room. The wall sconces and yellowed lanterns watched her with cynical eyes as she made her way down the hallway. The doors were like mouths, laughing at her, wanting to gulp her down as she approached the one she actually wanted to eat her.

Soon, though, she finally reached the room. Her entire body shook violently as she stared at the door. She needed to reinforce her idea. She needed to make sure, to herself, that this really was what she wanted to do. Even if she was just going to scare him, threaten him, making him aware that she knew that he did it. Again, she inhaled deeply through her nose, and slowly out of her mouth. One hand shook as it reached upwards, knuckle prepared to knock at the door, and the other shook as it descended into her bag and grasped the grip of the gun. She knocked.

She only had to wait a few seconds, before the door opened, and there stood Cicero. He looked as though he hadn't showered in days. He look disheveled, unkempt, covered in oil and wax. The strangest thing about it, however, was the fact that he wore that damned jester suit. The hat sat askew upon his head. He had massive, dark bags under his eyes and his face looked sunken as though he hadn't eaten in a while either. His eyes widened slightly when he saw her, before narrowing his eyes and opening his dry, cracked lips to speak.

"Cicero thought he told you-" he began, but was cut short when Clarice lifted her hand from her bag, holding the gun tightly.

She brought her other hand onto the grip as well, and held it in front of her, the barrel facing Cicero. He widened his eyes and reflexively lifted his hands in defense.

"What is that?" he asked, staring at it, terrified.

"It's a pistol, Cicero," Clarice said, her voice confident and drenched in venom, though shaking with the fear of what she was doing. She stepped forward, forcing him to back up. "It's a weapon. The sort of weapon you're not used to. I suppose you prefer a dagger, am I right?"

He frowned and furrowed his brow, looking away from the barrel and to her eyes. "What are you taking about? Have you found my blade?"

"Oh, yes," she said, kicking the door shut behind her, not moving her arms away from him, her eyes not faltering away from his. "The police found the dagger, and told me. I said I didn't recognise it, but I knew. I fucking knew."

Cicero tilted his head slightly. "Knew what? You're not making any sense!"

"I just need to ask you one thing," she said, glaring at him. "Why? Why did you do it?"

"Do _what_?" Cicero said, becoming exasperated.

"Don't be stupid, Cicero!" Clarice shouted, tears welling in her eyes. "I know you killed Wanda!"

"Wanda?" he said, eyebrows furrowed. Then, his eyes widened slightly, with realisation. "Wait, what? Wanda? You mean your friend? Cicero didn't kill her."

"You're lying," she seethed, holding the pistol steady. "All the evidence points to you. They found your blade in the chest of my best friend. How does that happen if you didn't put that there! I don't think there's anyone else around here who has an identical blade. Don't try to play me for a fool."

"No, no, wait!" Cicero held his hands out in front of himself, pleading. "Listen to me! Kay, Cicero was over there," he pointed to his still-open window where he had been standing. He then carefully jogged over to the window. Clarice kept the pistol on him, knowing he wasn't trying to make some stupid run for it, unless he was suicidal. "Cicero was standing right here. He held his blade in his hands, and then he abandoned it! He threw his blade right out the window! You gotta believe me, Doc. Cicero didn't kill your friend!"

"_Our beloved little fool is telling the truth, mortal_," the Night Mother's voice filled her head. She turned her head to look in the room where the Night Mother's coffin sat, opened, candles lit around her. She could see the beautiful figure of her spirit in her mind, assuring her, calming her. She felt herself lower the weapon, though she couldn't explain why. She seemed to feel more relaxed when hearing that voice. It truly was… intimate. "_He didn't kill your friend. But I have a hunch as to who did._"

"Now, back to what's important," Cicero continued, turning narrow eyes on her. He approached her again, but as he did so, he noticed the large bandage upon her neck. He paused and pointed to it. "Did… Did Cicero do that?"

Clarice lifted her hand to her neck and gingerly touched the thick bandage, before nodding. "Of course you did. I didn't just slip and fall to do this."

Cicero said nothing, watching it. He knew he hurt her, but he was not aware just how much. He frowned, looking back up to her face, not sure how to react. The conflict as to whether or not he wanted to kill her returned. She deceived him and hurt him, but she had meant something to him. She tried to help him more than anyone else had. How could he kill her for that? Carefully, he lifted a hand towards her. Reflexively, she lifted the pistol in his direction, causing him to stop abruptly.

"Can I touch it?" he asked, his voice quiet.

Clarice said nothing and lowered the weapon again. She wasn't sure why, but she knew that he wasn't going to hurt her. She inhaled deeply as though prepping herself for contact. After what felt like a thousand years, she felt his hands, rough and oily though so gentle, touch the bandage. He stroked it softly, his thumb brushing her chin lightly. She felt goosebumps rise on her skin from the connection, memories of that night in her office, and the night before in her house flashing back to her, reminding her of how passionate he could be. He was so far from insane at those moments. He was another entity, one with her. It made her feel as though there was more in this world to live for.

Suddenly, she felt a painful sting erupt on her neck. She gasped, her eyes flashing open as she looked to him. He was looking up to her, smiling innocently, holding the bandage, revealing the stitches. She watched him carefully as he began to examine his handiwork, and that of the doctor. He lifted his finger to touch it, but she stopped him.

"Don't," she said, her voice almost silent. "It hurts."

His eyes met hers and the narrowed. "As it should. You shouldn't have come back."

"There's something I need to say to you," she told him. It was time to say it. She was extremely curious to see what his reaction would be to the words, if he recognised them at all, if it was all some sort of ploy, or if it really was just a morphine-induced delusion telling her to say such things. Her logic leaned towards the latter conclusion, but there was so many factors within her, a strange sureness, that he would know what she was saying and things would change. Besides, it was for more than just curiosity, now. If the Mother really knew what happened to her best friend, she could fix things for herself – she could make sense of the world again, in a world that made less sense than she ever imagined.

"Yes? Cicero is listening," he watched her, eyes still narrow.

She inhaled deeply again, before parting her lips, and speaking to him. "Darkness Rises when Silence Dies."

With those words, Cicero's eyes went wide. His face went pale, his eyebrows furrowed, and his lips parted. He took a step away from her, and another, and another. His hands were in fists in front of himself, shaking violently, as were his legs. All at once, he collapsed to his knees, eyes fixed on her. Clarice's eyebrows knitted together and she approached him in confusion. She noticed that his eyes were wet with tears that glinted in the candlelight from the room which held the Night Mother.

"H-how do you know to say that?" he asked, his voice shaking as much as his hands.

"The Night Mother came to me in my sleep, and told me to say that to you," she told him, concerned. "She said she knows how to get you both home, and she needs me to convey the messages."

"Oh, Gods," he said, slumping, as though all energy suddenly left him. His shoulders shuddered as he seemed to cry to himself, silently. She watched him for a moment, before bending down to his level, and watching him more closely.

"Cicero?" she said, her voice soft. "Are you okay?"

He lifted his head, his face drenched with salty tears. "After all this time. After all that has happened… She really did speak to you… Cicero didn't believe you… Oh, Gods, Listener, I am so, so sorry!" He collapsed to her, taking her hands in his, and begging her for forgiveness.

She backed away from him slightly, confused. She wasn't sure what she was expecting from him after speaking those words to him, but this was the strangest. He held her hands so tightly, before lifting his torso back up, and getting closer to her. He reached out and took her face between his hands, before leaning forward and pressing his shaking, wet lips against hers. Her eyes were wide as she watched him, but the immense craving for his lips against hers again seemed to sedate her bewilderment. The kiss seemed rushed, however, pleading, hectic. She parted from him and watched him closely.

"Please, Listener," he beseeched. "Please forgive me. Life for Cicero has been so… strange. It's really stressing me out." He offered a slight laugh through the tears.

She smiled at him, relieved by the drop in pressure in the room by the laugh. He quickly wiped his face on his sleeve, before reaching down to his jester's suit and undoing it. Clarice widened her eyes, watching him.

"Um, what are you doing?" she said, furrowing her brow.

"We have work to do," he told her, pulling off the outfit. "This needs to be washed for the trip home." He stood and left her sight, walking to the kitchen in the pantry where he kept his clothing. "I need to slip into something a little more… Modern."

She laughed, shaking her head, and standing. She turned her head to see the Night Mother watching her through dead eyes – or lack thereof.

"_Well done_," the Night Mother said to her. She could hear a grin in her voice. "_But he's right. There is much work to be done. Wait until you see what's coming. You won't believe it… Listener_."


	10. Chapter 10

Clarice and Cicero collapsed onto Cicero's couch, sighing heavily. It was a lot of work fetching incredibly special ingredients from incredibly strange places for the beloved Night Mother. For example, she required fresh eggs – not store bought, but coming directly from the chicken. For that, they had to search the farmer's market, but found no eggs that had been laid recently. However, the owner knew the man who supplied the eggs; one phone call and 45-minute trip into the middle of nowhere later, they had two brand new, still-warm eggs in their hands.

Then, they had to fetch an assortment of flowers. The Night Mother spoke of several strange breeds which Clarice had never heard of before, but after doing some research on flowers with the same sort of metaphysical properties, she managed to compile a list of more common-to-this-planet breeds. It was then to the flower shop, where Cicero had the hardest time understanding any of the flowers he was picking up. He confused tulips with hydrangeas and peonies with lilies. Becoming quire flustered with the situation, he decided to sit back and allow her to compile the list on her own. Some of the flowers included Snapdragons, Asiatic Lilies, Bleeding Hearts, and Orchids. After a long and frustrating conversation with the florist, who was firmly against their selection, stating that those colours "clashed", they were back home with a multi-coloured bouquet of randomness.

After that, they required a large assortment of mushrooms, many of which were non-existent in this world as well. But, again, they managed to replace them. They had to be fresh, however (of course), directly from the earth. After returning to the egg-provider, who knew someone who grew their own mushrooms (Clarice had to constantly remind him that it wasn't hallucinogenic mushrooms they were looking for), and another phone call, followed by another 30-minute trip into the depths of the middle of nowhere, they had a bushel of all sorts of mushrooms, from all different places, directly from the manure piles and greenhouses.

There were things she required that there was no replacing, such as strange, glowing roots and bowls of odd substances that there was no retrieving in this world. Instead, she had to try and fill the recipe with herbs and other natural things that had similar properties, but nowhere near the same construction. The Night Mother insisted that it wouldn't be as potent as they could possibly have been, but nevertheless, it was still worth the effort.

After compiling the rest of the required substances and placing them in a place where they could remain somewhat fresh, they took some time to relax. Clarice was remarkably confused with the situation. Either she was incredibly delusional in believing what was happening, perhaps she was subconsciously humouring the madman, perhaps she was being played still, but perhaps everything was real. For the moment, considering that she was not working, and there was no more beer and martinis, she would go with this interesting, strange flow, and allow the world to work around her, confusing her, consuming her. The madman and the psychologist, working together to achieve the most strangest of goals.

"What is she expecting to do with all this crap?" Clarice said, turning to look at Cicero.

He looked to her, raising an eyebrow. "How is Cicero supposed to know? iYou're/i the Listener."

She smirked and rolled her eyes, shaking her head. She stared up at the ceiling, thinking about the past events. How strange they were. Never, in her entire life, did she think circumstances as strange as these would ever occur, especially to her.

"Cicero," she said, her head rolling upon the back of the couch to face him. "Tell me about Tamriel."

Cicero looked to her, a huge smile on his face. He smiled and closed his eyes, facing the ceiling again, and sighing. "It is unlike anything here," he explained. "It has so much history. There are Gods and Daedra and different regions in different areas. Cicero is from Cyrodiil, which is much like your standard place with seasons and green grass and trees which change colours. It has a history with corruption and gates to the world of the Daedra. But Skyrim… Oh, beautiful Skyrim. Skyrim is full of mountain ranges and the Throat of the World. One place would be covered in snow, and the next is filled with lush, green grass and dreaded Spriggons. Bears and goats and elk and trolls and giants and mammoths and rabbits and slaughterfish and salmon and horkers and skeevers and frostbite spiders… So many beautiful creatures! And underground Dwemer ruins – Cicero wishes he saw a dwarf! Cicero can't even explain it. You need to see it to understand." Cicero then glanced over to look at her suggestively, but her eyes were closed. She was listening deeply. For the first time in a while, she was listening like she wanted to listen – while envisioning the storybook world of Cicero.

"It's ruled by an emperor…" Cicero continued. "Well, was. He was killed, you see. The Listener killed him. He came from Cyrodiil with the other Imperials. The Nords, natives of Skyrim, and the Imperials are in a constant war. So much racism, so much prejudice. Neither is all good nor all bad. Skyrim is separated into provinces, each ruled by a Jarl-"

"Tell me about the Listener back home," Clarice interrupted him, her eyes still closed. She wanted to imagine this mysterious predecessor.

Cicero thought fondly back to his beloved Listener, who was hopefully waiting for him in the Sanctuary. "She is an Altmer – a High Elf. The Dovahkiin – Dragonborn. She is the most un-Altmer Altmer Cicero has ever met. A Battle-Mage of sorts. Cicero has followed her and assisted her in her travels and battles for a while, before he had to run home and tend to the Mother. She has the sort of Altmer-attitude insofar as she is sort of snuff and cynical, but she was so helpful and could be so kind, even though she killed people for a living." Clarice could see a magnificent woman, standing there, tall, beautiful, almond eyes and pointed ears, hands full of fire.

"Do you miss her?" Clarice asked, opening her eyes, but not looking to him. She was afraid of the answer.

"Of course I do!" Cicero said, looking to her, and furrowing his brow. "She mattered a lot to the Mother and to Cicero."

Clarice opened her eyes and looked to Cicero, frowning gravely. "I mean… Do you, personally, miss her… As more than the Listener?"

Cicero narrowed his eyes, watching her for a long moment, until it finally hit him. He was so socially awkward, and so not used to things such as love and affection and relationships, that he had no idea how to associate those emotions with his own life, and make such connections. He slowly grinned at her. "Listener," he said, slyly. "Are you jealous?"

Clarice rolled her eyes and sneered, looking back up to the ceiling. Cicero burst out laughing and nudge her fondly, laying his head on her shoulder. "No, Cicero does not miss her like that. She was more interested in other shes."

Clarice's eyes widened slightly. "Um, oh," she replied, blushing lightly. "Well, okay then."

"_Would you two stop flirting sometime this era so we can finish the summoning?_" the Night Mother's voice came to her head.

Cicero watched her face become void of expression, as though she suddenly became deep in thought. "Is the Night Mother speaking? What did she say?" he asked eagerly, sitting up.

Clarice sighed, tiredly. "She wants us to continue the ritual." She sat forward and laid her head onto the coffee table in front of her, exhausted with the running around they had done. Was this ever going to end?

Cicero jumped up enthusiastically. "Well, come on, Listener! There is still much to be done!"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, dismissively. "I'll grab the notebook."

The two reconvened in the chamber where the Mother stood in her coffin, watching them both with dead, dead eyes. The final thing the Night Mother had requested of her, was an empty book. It could not contain lined pages or metal rings – just a bound book, with completely blank pages (thank the Gods for office supply depot stores). They brought the ingredients they retrieved into the room and placed them around the candles, as the Night Mother had insisted. Some things Cicero had relentlessly powdered and ground into a bowl. Clarice managed to come across a podium which could act as a pedestal on which the empty notebook needed to sit. Once everything was prepared, they stood back, and waited patiently, though incredibly excitedly, to see what was going to happen with the things they prepared.

"_I need Cicero to leave_," the Night Mother spoke to Clarice. She sighed and nodded, turning to Cicero. Good, she thought. She could get some sleep.

"She wants us out," Clarice said, heading towards the door, eyes half-lidded with fatigue.

Cicero looked to her with wide, disappointed eyes. He looked to his beloved Mother, then back to the Listener, then back to the Mother, and again to the Listener, before sighing. "D'oh, alright. I guess poor Cicero has to do what the Mother wishes of him!" With that, he skipped to the door, glancing back to see if anything had been done while his back was turned. Clarice sauntered at his heels.

"_Listener, wait_," the Night Mother stopped her.

Clarice groaned and looked back, frowning. "What."

"_Stay_," she said. "_Help me. I want you to see this_."

She furrowed her brow, before turning back to Cicero. "Sorry, but she wants me to hang out here. Maybe I'm going to be a sacrifice."

"Oh, don't be silly, Listener," the jester insisted. "Mother never gets her hands dirty. My, my, you are _so_ lucky! Cicero wishes he could stay."

"I'll tell you all about it later," Clarice leaned up against the door, watching Cicero back out of the threshold. "We'll gossip." With that, she closed the door, removing the Mother from Cicero's sight – or was it the other way around?

She sauntered back to the podium and stood behind the book, watching the Night Mother's corpse. She was awakened, slightly, by the sheer amount of curiosity she felt for the situation. She was immensely interested to see what exactly it was she needed to see. For some reason, she felt as though whatever it was she was about to witness, would answer all of her questions – she was really hoping they weren't just continuous delusions, brought about by exhaustion, or a dream.

Suddenly, the book flipped open. Clarice started backwards, startled by the suddenness of the motion. Before her, she watched as the pages of the book were being flipped as though by a fan blowing them over at a pace far too slow and fluid to simply be air. The items in the room seemed to be coming to life, as each one began to glow, and lend its energy to the book upon the podium. She saw tiny sparkles, like flecks of the sun, lifting off of the disintegrating objects, and float delicately through the air, before resting onto the pages of the book, and imprinting themselves upon them, dissolving on the paper. She felt a few things touch her skin and become caught in her hair. They were temperature-less – neither hot, nor cold – but she could feel them burning with energy and life. They shook to remove themselves from her wild, unkempt hair, like tiny, glowing insects caught in a web. Eventually, all the items were melted and their flecks of life embossed upon the pages of the notebook.

For a long span of time, nothing happened.

"_Good,_" the Night Mother said. Clarice could hear satisfaction in her voice. "_Now, there is one final thing I need of you for this particular summoning_."

One of the umpteen items the Night Mother required for this endeavour, was a long, study stick. It was obviously the easiest thing for them to find, since it could be in anyone's back yard. The Mother instructed Clarice to take the stick, and bring it to the book. When the stick was in Clarice's hands, she told her to read the book, keeping the stick in hand. Clarice, not sure what would come of this motion, since she clearly saw no words printed upon the pages when the flecks dissolved into them. Nevertheless, she did as she was told, held the stick firmly in her hands, before flipping open the cover of the book, leaning over to read it.

Suddenly, with a force stronger than hurricane winds, an energy flowed, from the book, through her body, our of her hand, and into the stick. She felt an immense burning scorch through her body, from her eyes, through her brain, down her neck, to her shoulder, down her arm, through her palm, and into the stick she held. She couldn't move at that moment, as the strength of the motion was far too much to control, and the sensation made her entire body convulse. Her eyes felt as though they were burning out of her head. Her heart was racing, as it too felt the singeing of the power.

After a while of this, each page again turning, but at a much faster rate, the force let her go. Before she got the chance to gasp for breath, she fell backwards and landed on her rump. She laid onto her back, breathing heavily, still clasping the stick tightly in her hand. Her entire body no longer felt as though it was disintegrating, rather it felt sort of cool, as though the rushing of cold water spilled through her, soothing her. Eventually, she managed to catch her breath, and held tightly onto it, while she gradually pulled herself back onto her feet.

"What the Hell was _that_?" Clarice demanded, leaning against the podium for support.

"_Magicka_," the Night Mother replied. "_This particular combination of things, mixed with my own bit of energy, made the Magicka come to life, even in this… dreary world. You don't have the capabilities of harnessing Magicka, so your body wasn't used to the sensation. Thankfully, it passed safely through you into the staff, rather than sticking around to find out what you can do_."

"Wait," Clarice paused. "You mean, that could have killed me? And you didn't care?"

"_Relax, my child_," the Night Mother eased her. "_It was a necessary risk. Besides, the chances of it killing you were only about sixty-seven percent. Now, since those ingredients aren't fully what we need and we did a very rough enchantment here, that staff will only be good for one use – and even then, it's dicey_."

"What do you want me to do with it?" she asked.

"_Well, with the little bit of Magicka still running through you, I need you to cast the spell_," the Night Mother explained. "_Now, trust me, this won't be easy for you. You won't die, but you will be incredibly exhausted since it's exerting your limits to their… well… limits. Do you understand_?" Clarice nodded. "_Good. Now, stand in front of me, point the staff at the podium, and allow your remaining energy to spill through it and fill it with force, but keep it in your body. When you know it is at its very limits, release it, and you will have cast the spell. Gods, I hope this works…_"

Clarice did as she was told, and stood before the podium, her back to the Night Mother. She breathed heavily before lifting the staff and pointing it at the podium. As she did so, she felt her arm fill with the burning energy again. She breathed heavily, feeling her body charge what was then a weapon. Contrary to last time, she felt her body draining of the energy within her, and filling the staff. As she scraped the last bit of Magicka from her body, she watched as a strange black, purple, and white light swelled at the end of the stick. She widened her eyes, her arm convulsing and muscles flexing until it hurt. Before she felt her body collapse from being completely drained of energy, she felt a certain climax, an abrupt stop in energy flow, which told her she was void of it. She gasped and exhaled sharply, before thrusting the built up energy through her arm, and through the stick. She watched as the swollen purple ball fell from the staff, causing an even bigger purple sphere to expand on the floor.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The sphere sat upon the floor, a vibrating, pulsing shivering mass of purple and black light. Clarice allowed her legs to collapse, since she felt completely drained of vitality, but kept her eyes focused on the strange thing unfolding before her. Unless she was still being drugged, there was no way this wasn't real. She could feel the power radiating off of it.

Slowly, something began to unfold within the void. The power throbbing off of the portal became much stronger as the thing within it emerged, developing a humanoid construction, comprehensible to her cognition. Soon, the portal began to shrink, disappear from sight, leaving behind an odd entity.

A tall, magnificent, skeletal figure stood in the room, a dark smoke swirling around it. It wore a long, hooded robe. It didn't have any skin, but it seemed to be covered in a thin layer of some sort of organic matter, giving it a dark red, bloody appearance upon the skeleton. It had no eyes, only dark recesses in the skull, void of any ocular objects. It seemed to scowl as it looked around the room in disgust. Eventually, its eyes rested upon Clarice. The skeleton then grinned the most sinister, bone-chilling grin she had ever witnessed. It set her teeth on edge.

"_Why, hello there, mortal_," a deep, husky voice filled her mind.

"Who… Who are you?" Clarice asked, terrified.

"_Me?_" the skeleton laughed, a horrendous, blood-curdling sound. His torn, tattered, black robes moved about him as though there was a light breeze in a low-gravity chamber. "_Why, I am the True God. The First and Only. The Void. I… am Sithis_."


	11. Chapter 11

"_Sithis, my love, what a pleasure it is to see you_," the Night Mother remarked, sensually. "_And what an interesting form you are assuming_."

"_It is because of the mortal_," Sithis replied, gesturing to Clarice. "_You know that if I was to show myself to her, her feeble, human mind would explode_." the skeletal figure looked around slowly, a black smoke hovering about him. There seemed to be somewhat of a constant hissing coming from the back of her mind, as though he made the sound, but was not physically making the sound. Instead, he was only producing the noise directly into her brain, rather than sending it into her ear first, to the thalamus, then into the brain. "_Hmmm. It seems,_ Mother, _that you are having an issue with dimensions._"

"_Clearly_," the Night Mother replied, sighing. "_It was the Hagraven, my Lord. I don't know how it managed to send my Keeper and me through time and space, but we found ourselves trapped on this crusty, filthy dimension._"

"_Yes, I noticed this…_" Sithis said, sighing. He crossed his skeletal arms. "_Well, I'm assuming that is why I am here_."

"_I would very much appreciate it, my love, if you would bring my Keeper and me back home_," the Night Mother insisted.

Sithis glanced to the Night Mother for a moment, before chuckling lightly. He shook his skull. "_I'm afraid I cannot do that. You see, I could tell you how to get home, but I cannot bring you myself. I can only transport souls, Mother. Besides, I don't have time for that; I need to pay the Shivering Isles a visit this evening – Sheogorath invited me to tea. Crazy fool._"

"_Well, then tell me what we need to do,_" Clarice could sense some agitation growing in the Night Mother's voice.

If this person was like the God back in Tamriel, was he the God of her world as well? Clarice shook her head, sighing. She was not much of a religious person, but seeing this "God", and after Cicero speaking constantly about his beloved Gods, perhaps there was some sort of inter-dimensional omniscient being governing over all of them. But if this thing really was God, then was there a heaven? And if there was a heaven, could he possibly bring Wanda back?

"_Well, you must reopen the portal back to Tamriel_," Sithis replied, grinning smugly. "_You know I can't give away too much. It would ruin the story_."

"_And how do we do this?_" the Night Mother said, stiffly.

"_Tell me about how you have been feeling, recently_," Sithis remarked, watching the corpse of the Night Mother. Clarice could only assume that he was really seeing the Mother how she truly was in spirit – the same way Clarice had seen her in her dream.

The Night Mother paused. Clarice could feel the venom in her dead stare. "_…How I have been_ feeling_? What in the Void are you talking about, Sithis_."

"_You can't tell me you have not been feeling it. If so, I'm worried about your competence anymore, Mother. You may be growing old_."

Immediately, with those words, the room filled with anger and thick tension. It reminded Clarice of the bickering of an old, married couple. Clearly, he knew how to push her buttons, and she reacted just as he anticipated. If it wasn't a God and a… Whatever the Night Mother was, she probably would have snickered at their argument, but the consequences could be far too extreme to risk a chuckle.

Then, the Mother paused. "_You mean… The darkness? I thought that was just something in this world_."

"_It didn't feel at all familiar to you, Mother?_" Sithis replied, grinning.

"_I felt it through the door the other day,_" the Night Mother continued. "_I knew it was something I recognised. You don't think…_"

Sithis sneered broadly, the taut muscles on his skull pulling back, contorting into a humanoid expression, looking even more sinister than he had. Slowly, the skull nodded.

"_That's… Interesting_." the Night Mother replied. "_What do you think it wants? Has it not done enough already?_"

"_Ah, ah, ah_," Sithis raised a skeletal finger, and wiggled it side to side, as if to taunt her. His voice echoed in Clarice's mind, like a bell being rung in her brain. "_Spoilers. All you need to do is convince it to send you back. Sounds easy enough, right?_" Sithis laughed, cruelly.

"_So, why is it here? I mean, how did it get here?_" the Mother asked.

"_Same way as you. You see, it knew the ultimate way to get back at the Dark Brotherhood for trying to kill it, was to remove you completely. It didn't mean to remove your Keeper as well. It wanted to see where it sent you, of course. It was trying to channel Oblivion, but it found this place instead. And as curious as those Hagravens are, since they are the epitome of curiosity gone wrong, they decided to follow you in. Only it knows how to get back, since it is just waiting to finish messing with you before it decides to go home. You need to convince it to take you and your Keeper with it._" Sithis explained.

"_I don't even know how to contact it_," the Night Mother said, more to herself than to Sithis.

"_Well, that's easy,_" Sithis said, before he glanced to Clarice, who was still on the floor, watching him.

When the hollow sockets where eyes should be were staring at her, she felt the hair on her body lift off her skin. She felt as though Sithis's skeletal fingers were exploring her, underneath her flesh, making her feel cold. She looked back to the Night Mother, worried. Suddenly, she felt as though the corpse behind her really was some sort of mother figure, sheltering her, keeping her safe from the Dread Lord. For the first time since she's seen this well-oiled corpse, she felt warm in her presence, and safe from what was in front of her.

"What is he talking about..?" Clarice said, her voice almost a frightened whimper.

"_Ah, it still speaks_!" Sithis laughed. "_I had almost forgotten you had a mouth._"

"_Stop it, Sithis_," the Mother warned. "_Don't frighten her. She may be a mortal from a foreign world, but she's still my Listener, and therefore she is my daughter_."

"_Ah, how protective you are of your… children. It's no wonder they call you their mother_," Sithis regarded the mortal woman sitting on the floor below the Night Mother's casket carefully, still grinning slightly. "_Here's incentive for you, mortal. Remember your beloved friend? The one who was killed in this very apartment? The same darkness of which we speak is what stole her life._"

Clarice sat forward, eyes wide. "Can you bring her back? If you are the God of the Void, is her soul not there? Can you bring her back to me?"

Sithis laughed and gave her a pitiful smile. "_Oh, how you plead, simple mortal. No, I cannot bring her back. Her body is far too detached and already too dead to return her soul to it. I could, however, allow a final goodbye between you two. Not right now, of course. I have to go looking for her, and imagine what that is like – searching through a void of billions of trillions of souls for one measly mortal. But, of course, you'll have to play the bait in order to lure the creature that brought them here, back to this exact room. Oh, and you don't have much time_."

Clarice frowned. "Why not? Is something else coming?"

"_So to speak_," Sithis shrugged. He then sneered down at her. "_But, again, spoilers. I'll just tell you that they are coming for you, to ask a few questions to which you do not have the answers. You're about to put your beloved jester and his Mother in jeopardy. Unintentionally, of course._"

"_Why the darkness, my Lord?_" the Night Mother asked him. "_I have never heard of such a cloaking spell_."

"_Well, if you can believe it, it stole Boethiah's Ebony Mail from the Dragonborn_," Sithis laughed.

Cicero sat on the floor in front of the door, ear pressed against the painted, faux wood. Every once in a while, he would hear Clarice mention something, but other than that, he did not hear anyone else in the room. It sounded as though Clarice was going as insane as he was. He could not hear much of what she was saying, but a few key words she spoke every once in a while, he could understand. Suddenly, he heard Clarice say a single sentence that made his eyes widen, followed by the overwhelming urge to burst through the door.

"The Dragonborn?" Clarice said to Sithis. "You mean the Listener? Is she alive?"

Sithis's head jerked upwards, before he grinned. Suddenly, behind him, the portal orb began to swell, dark purple and black light filling the room as it expanded behind the Dread Lord.

"_Well, it's time for me to go,_" Sithis said, backing slowly into the bulging portal. "_Your little Keeper is about to burst through the door any second. Figure it out,_ Listener. _I will be back once you are ready_."

With that, the manifestation of the Void began to contort into the portal, and disappear. Clarice watched it in awe, feeling both Sithis's and the Mother's presences leave her mind. Just as the portal finally began to shrivel and disappear, she heard the door thrust open. The moment the door was completely open, and the jester fell into the room, the void had fully disappeared.

Cicero stood there, at the threshold of the door, eyes wide. He paused for a moment, before leaping away from the door, and stumbling to Clarice, who was still sitting on the floor, in slight shock. He collapsed beside her, and took her face in his, squeezing her cheeks together, causing her lips to purse. His gaze was frantic and excited as he looked her over briefly to make sure she was alright.

"What happened?" Cicero exclaimed. "Who was in here?"

"Apparently, we shubboned Shithish," she said, speaking through her lips jutting forward.

Cicero tilted his head to the side. "What?"

Clarice moved her head away from Cicero's hands, and rubbed her cheeks gingerly. "We summoned Sithis. He told us that there is something here that can bring you back, but he couldn't-"

"Wait, _Sithis_ was here?" Cicero said, eyes wide. "In my apartment? The Dread Lord, here, just having a simple conversation with you? …Did he mention capering?"

"It is the thing that sent you here in the first place," he said, disregarding his last question. "The Hagraven. It's here, and it is the only thing that knows how to get back. We need to find it and lure it here so we can get it to take you home."

Cicero listened closely, sitting beside her. He nodded as she spoke, in an attempt to fully understand what she was telling him. After she finished speaking, he stood, and extended his hands to her. She looked to them, perplexed for a brief moment, before taking his hands and lifting herself onto her feet. He guided her out of the room, closing the door to the room behind himself, after smiling kindly to the Night Mother. He then led her into the living room, and she paused, eyes wide, in the opening of the living room.

All the lights were off in the entire apartment. Instead, it was all lit with the thousands of candles he had in his house, upon every surface, drenching the area in wax. On the table, sat a beer, a martini, and a rum and Coke, all reflecting the tiny dots of light upon the sweating glass. He guided her towards the couch, where he gently placed her down. He smiled and sat beside her, gesturing to the drinks in front of her. She felt immensely relaxed in this state, and the exhaustion that filled her before the ordeal with Sithis returned to her. She eyed the martini.

"Just relax for a bit, Clarice," he insisted, laying her back. "Cicero knows how tired you are."

"What's with the martini?" she asked, watching it.

Cicero shrugged. "Cicero knows how much his Listener loved drinking beer while her friend drank martinis. He's going to try and drink one for you, so you don't miss your friend too much."

Clarice immediately felt her eyes hurt as tears filled their ducts. She looked to him, smiling slightly, as her eyes filled and spilled over the edge. Cicero's own eyes widened and he seemed to become worried. He lifted his hand to catch the tear upon his thumb before it could fall too far.

"Are you okay?" he said, concerned.

"Yeah," Clarice sniffed and laughed slightly in spite of herself. "Of course I am. This is so wonderful, Cicero. I don't know how to thank you."

He shook his head, smiling. "Don't. Cicero did this for you so you could enjoy it and relax. You're doing all this for him and his beloved Mother… You deserve this."

Clarice sighed, and leaned her head onto Cicero's shoulder. He was slightly taken aback for a moment, looking down at her with slight surprise, but when he heard her sigh with comfort and relaxation, he smiled and became comfortable with her. He stroked her hair gently, breathing gently into the follicles. Feeling him close to her made her feel as though there was no reason to worry about anything. It soothed her. His simple presence was enough to make her feel at home in a pair of arms. He wanted to be close to him.

"What I said before," she said quietly, watching a candle flicker. "When you almost killed me… I said I cared about you. I wasn't just saying that so you would let me go, you know."

He smiled into her hair, and closed his eyes. "I know." He told her. "Cicero is sorry for putting you in that position."

She positioned herself so she was laying her back against his chest, horizontal on the sofa, nestled between his legs. He held her in his arms as she laid her head back onto the front of his shoulder. Both entities sighed, comfortably. She closed her eyes.

"Cicero…?" she said, her voice low. "You said your past wasn't interesting. …Do you even remember it?"

Cicero paused for a moment, looking over her to one of the flickering candles. The light danced within his bright eyes and he examined the fragile flame closely. "It comes back, sometimes. I… Remember joining the Brotherhood. I remember seeing the Mother for the first time. But… Cicero doesn't remember if he had parents, or siblings, other than those at the Brotherhood. Sometimes, he doesn't even remember the faces of his brothers and sisters from the Brotherhood. Everything after the Jester, he remembers. He took the Jester for himself as a trophy. My suit… It was his. I was glad to know him… But I don't remember his face. I don't think I ever knew his name. Everything before the jester and the laughing… Cicero forgets it."

She turned her head slightly to look up at him. His face was contorted into an expression that reflected his inner conflicts. His eyebrows were knitted together, his frown deep. With this expression, his age seemed to show through. Normally, he did look quite youthful, despite his incredibly deep laugh lines and those tiny crow's feet and smile marks. But when he was upset, or confused, his age really shone through. His visage seemed to sink, his eyes lost their glow. The moment he noticed that she was looking at him, his face quickly returned into a youthful smile. He pressed his lips lightly against her forehead and sighed into her skin, closing his eyes. She closed hers as well, calming herself. He needed to go home. She knew he wasn't happy here… But, oh, how she would miss him.

When she opened her eyes again, he was laying alone on Cicero's sofa. She looked out the window behind her, and found bright light pouring into the apartment. She smiled slightly to herself, remembering how comfortable she was when she fell asleep. For the first time in a long while, she felt well rested when she awoke. Her neck was stiff and sore, however. She eyed her coat lying across a chair a ways away from her, knowing that her high dose of ibuprofen was in there, waiting for her. She groaned as she moved in the couch, carefully bringing herself to her feet.

The apartment smelled of bacon and foods cooking. She smiled at the thought of a freshly cooked breakfast, something she hadn't experienced since she last spent a night at Wanda's home. The underlying tones of baking bread wafted into her olfactory glands, stimulating her stomach to turn hungrily. She shuffled towards her coat. As she moved, she heard Cicero's voice engaged in a one-sided conversation, probably with the Mother again. She paused at the closed door to the Mother's chamber, and listened closely.

"I don't know if I can go home without her, Mother," Cicero's voice said. "But Cicero doesn't think the Listener wants to come. She has said she cares about me… I don't know what to do. Cicero has never been in this position before… He's never felt like this, Mother. You must have these feelings for the Dread Lord, right, Mother?" Clarice heard the Night Mother snort. "Cicero doesn't know what to do…" Cicero sighed. "I don't know what to do."

Clarice frowned, listening to him. She didn't realise that, by confessing her feelings for him, that she was causing him an even more excruciating inner conflict. She was not aware that she was hurting him. She reached for her coat, but instead of inserting her hand into her coat pocket, she just grabbed the entire thing, and pulled it on. She paused for a moment, staring at the door, contemplating her actions. She knew, however, what she needed to do. She had to give him time to regulate his emotions and internal struggles. She nodded to herself, before walking out of the apartment.

She drove home, not necessarily feeling poorly about what had transpired. On one hand, she finally knew that the lengthy story Cicero had provided a long time ago, was completely true. There was a Night Mother, there was a Sithis, there was a Dark Brotherhood and a Tamriel, and his home that he needed to go back to. She wasn't sure why she was so comfortable with this situation; she just experienced an epiphany that assured her of an afterlife, of Gods, and of other dimensions. For some reason, she was comfortable with it. There were bigger things to worry about than her own interpretation of the new world she was subjected to. She felt like writing a book.

Then there was Cicero himself: the silly little madman who she fell so madly for. She was immensely conflicted with the fact that she did feel incredibly strongly for him, and she knew she would miss him far too much if she was to never see him again. On the other hand, she couldn't just up and leave her life. There were things she needed to take care of back on Earth. She couldn't just run from it.

"There's something I haven't seen in far too long," a voice suddenly came from beside her.

Clarice screamed and almost drove directly into a ditch lining the street. She turned her head quickly, and paused, eyes wide, when she saw the blue, opaque figure of her best friend sitting in the passenger's seat.

"W-Wanda?" she said, hands shaking as she gripped the steering wheel.

"Hey, sup," she said, grinning. "You're looking very different from how you have been recently. Something I haven't seen in a long time. You look happy."

"How… What…" she stumbled over her words, trying to keep her eyes on the road, but also glancing to the spectre beside her.

"I was pulled out of… Wherever I was," Wanda said, with a smile. "I was given the chance to say goodbye."


	12. Chapter 12

Cicero left his mother's room, closing the door firmly behind him. He walked past the living room, not even turning his gaze towards the couch. For so many years, he has taught himself that even the smallest of gaze could materialise into tainting the perfection of what one witnesses. For example, in certain moments, Cicero couldn't even look at the Night Mother, because the simplicity of his gaze was incredibly filthy and could taint her purity. Here, in this case, the knowledge of the sleeping woman upon his couch, in her moment of purity, was enough to divert his gaze, for fear that he could wake her or disturb her in some way, just by looking at her.

What contented him the most, was the fact that there was a sleeping woman on his couch, and this meant that, since she was asleep, and sleep, as Cicero had learned through years of killing people for money, was the most complete form of vulnerability, that she trusted him. Her moment of fragility was rested, by her, into his hands. She allowed herself to become comfortable around him, and will herself to feel safe with him. Never before had he felt this way. The moment when he was trusted with becoming the Mother's keeper was similar, but this was a woman, entrusting herself into his hands, not begin given to him. He was humbled, and glad, by these events.

He returned into the kitchen, where a great many things were cooking – left over fresh eggs from the summoning, bacon that he had sitting in his freezer for almost too long, freshly baked bread, which he was incredibly used to making back home in Skyrim (since, due to the freezing temperatures, they had to eat entire wheels of cheese and loaves of bread at one time to maintain a healthy calorie intake). He placed a few towels over his hands, reached into the oven, and removed the crusty bread from the oven. It had taken quite a few charcoal bricks intended to be bread in order to figure out how to properly use the strange oven with no fire.

He sliced into the bread, allowing the aroma of the warm loaf to emit into the air. He placed them on the sides of two plates, along with the over-easy eggs, and a few strips of bacon. He smiled at the presentation of the breakfast. He was used to eating meals like that quite often, but he knew that Clarice was not as accustomed, and was continuing to treat her, like he treated the Mother, just for being with him.

Slowly, he was becoming confident in his feelings for her. He hadn't remembered much of his past before the Brotherhood and, especially, before the Jester. However, he knew that he had once felt something for someone, and the reflections of those emotions assured him that he was capable of feeling it again. He liked her, he told himself. He really did. He liked it when she was lying in his arms, he liked when she spoke to him, he liked his lips against her, he liked being inside of her, he liked her and everything she was. He liked her being in his house. He liked her lying on his couch. …Why wasn't she lying on his couch?

He walked into the living room, two plates in his hands. "Clarice! Breakfast is… served?"

He paused in the entrance to the living room, finding his couch void of Clarice. He frowned, looking to the place where her coat had hung, and found no coat to be found. He looked down to the plates in his hands, frowning. He knew there was no way he could take these and keep them fresh, to her house. When had she left? She was there when he went to take care of the Mother. Where did she go?

Immediately, he began to feel worried. He hoped, and prayed to the Gods, that nothing had happened to her, and that the Hagraven hadn't found her either. Maybe, however, she would be coming back to him. He nodded, content on that thought, and turned to bring the plates back into the kitchen. He placed the full plates back into the empty oven, hoping they would stay somewhat fresh until Clarice returned. A single slice of bread hung out of his mouth haphazardly as he closed the oven, and proceeded back into the kitchen.

In there, contrary to what had been there beforehand, an entity was sitting upon his sofa. Again, he paused at the entrance to the living room, surprised by the sight. An aura of deep darkness consumed half of the sofa, but eventually it subsided, leaving behind a tall, slim creature that looked like a horrendous combining of a raven and an old woman. It had a long, curved nose, long, slender claws, and bird-like feet, random feathers protruding out of the thing's skin in odd places. It wore a heavy-looking armour, which was what delivered the dark smoke which swirled around it.

"Hello, Black Hand," the Hagraven said, grinning. In its claw, it twirled Cicero's ebony blade around its fingers, playing with it in a threatening manner.

"What are you doing here?" Cicero said, as more of a statement than a question. The Hagraven cackled. "How did you find my blade?"

"Oh, I happened to come across it in an alley," the Hagraven grinned. "Sort of followed it after you threw it out the window in wistful abandon."

"What do you want from me," Cicero said, glaring. "Where is Clarice?"

"Oh, she left," the Hagraven replied. "And I entered. She didn't even see me walk past her. And I don't want much, Black Hand. Just revenge. You have killed so many of my sisters, you and your kind. And what better way to get back at you, than remove what you all so desperately cling to: your mother. You, Cicero, are simply a liability. You are physically capable of finding out how to go back, and I just can't have that, can I? You weren't supposed to go with her. So, now, I have to eliminate you, the Keeper of what I want destroyed. Loose ends and everything. You understand."

Finally, Clarice saw a parking lot in which she could pull over and park for a moment, both to recollect herself, and to speak with this apparition. She stopped the car at the edge of the parking lot, and stared forward at the world in front of her, without really seeing it. The smallest sounds that occurred around her seemed far too loud – the cars driving parallel to her on the highway to her left, the sound of footsteps walking in and out of the store to her right, the dull voices of individuals going to work in the early morning, the wind hitting against her car.

"…Clary?" Wanda said, frowning.

Clarice blinked and turned her gaze to the ghost, where they rested for a long moment. She examined the opaque, blue-white figure. It looked like Wanda: some sort of three-dimensional silhouette of her best friend. It sounded like Wanda, though a slight more echo-y. There seemed to be a cold aura around the passenger, chilling her slightly. She sighed and looked away from the apparition, not sure what to say to her.

"How is everything going with you?" Wanda said, looking out the window as well.

"Fine," Clarice said. "Trying to get Cicero home."

"Yeah, I heard," Wanda replied, turning her head to look at Clarice. "Why didn't you tell me about all that?"

Clarice glanced to her, smirking slightly. "Would you have really believed me?"

Wanda smiled back, and looked forward again. She sighed heavily. "I would love to go to that world with you."

Clarice turned her head to look at her. "I'm not going."

Wanda's eyes widened and she snapped her head to look beside her at her best friend. "_What_?! How could you turn that down? Imagine that world. I heard it even had two moons and northern lights all year round! And I know how much you like that creepy little jester."

Clarice giggled slightly, before looking back out the windshield. "I just can't. I have too much to do here. Imagine what my clients would do without me."

"Fuck the clients!" Wanda said, loudly. "Clarice, for fuck sakes, you need to do something for you at some point in your existence. Just say, screw everyone else, and go do what you want, rather than what other people want you to do."

Clarice sighed and smiled, looking to her friend. "I miss you, Wanda."

Wanda's harsh gaze turned into a soft, sympathetic smile. She couldn't stay mad at her best friend for too long. She shook her head and sighed, looking back out the window. "Wanna hear what the afterlife is like?"

"No," Clarice insisted. "I want to be surprised about something."

"Have you heard from Stephen?" Wanda asked, referring to her boyfriend.

Clarice shook her head, sadly. "No. I was meaning to call him, but I wanted to give him the chance to mourn. You should see the guest list for your funeral, though – there's a waiting list."

Wanda laughed. "Make sure it's a party, eh?"

Clarice laughed, thinking about all the parties her and her best friend had had together, drinking countless beers and martinis, laughing, singing, and dancing. If anyone could party, it was Wanda King. And now, the world was without her. Clarice was without her.

Unable to contain it any longer, thousands of tiny beads of salty water coalesced and rose in Clarice's eyes, filling them, then began to pour out. Her face contorted into the expression of utter agony, and in an attempt to hide it from Wanda, in front of whom she always hated to cry, she let her face fall into her hands, and attempted to supress the shuddering of her shoulders as she sobbed.

"Please don't cry!" Wanda said, her voice shaking as she moved over to embrace her friend. The apparition's body upon Clarice's didn't feel human, or like a physical entity, rather it simply felt cold. Despite this, Clarice knew it was still her best friend, and she couldn't help sit up and hug her tightly. "You know that I always cry when you cry."

"I don't know what I'm going to do without you!" Clarice sobbed into her best friend's apparition. Her tears ran down her un-skin, like clear marbles rolling down a smooth hill.

"You need to keep going!" Wanda insisted, also crying. Once her tears fell from her face, they disappeared completely. "You need to devote your life to making yourself happy while you make others happy, since that's what you've always done best. You're so much more beautiful than me, Clary. I always envied you, how you just knew who you were and what you were doing."

"_I_ always envied _you_!" Clarice replied, with a slight laugh. "You were just always so gorgeous and everyone loved you."

"But I was like that because people fashioned me into a person like that," Wanda said, moving away from her to look her in the eyes. "You, you were just so sure in yourself. The people who loved me loved me because they loved what I made them look like when they were around me. I was fun. But all those same people loved you, because you basically just told the whole world to go fuck itself, and you were going to be you and you didn't care."

Clarice laughed, wiping her eyes. "That's the exact opposite of how I viewed myself."

"I know that," Wanda said, wiping her face. "That's why I wanted to tell you that. That's why I wanted you to be Claire's godmother."

"Claire?" Clarice frowned, tilting her head to a side.

Wanda began sobbing again, smiling through the tears. "Yeah. The dudes up in the afterlife told me that she was going to be a girl. And Stephen and I both said that if it was a girl, we were naming her after you."

Clarice choked on a sob, wiping her eyes viciously. "And if it was a boy?"

Wanda shrugged, laughing through a weep. "I dunno, David or something lame like that."

Both women laughed at each other for a short moment, before wiping their own eyes and sniffing in an attempt to bring themselves back to reality for a moment.

"I can't stay long," Wanda said. "Besides, you're about to get a really important phone call, and I'm not supposed to be here when you do."

Clarice frowned, bewildered. "A phone call? From whom?"

Wanda smiled and shook her head. "Spoilers."

With that, the silhouette that was Wanda began to fade. Clarice could see through her much better. She shook her head and desperately reached for the cold figure. Wanda extended her arms and embraced her best friend tightly. Clarice cried softly into the fading figure. Her tears now passed through her, rather than rolling off of her. Eventually, so too did her arms – they slipped right through the figure.

"I love you," Clarice said, sniffing.

"I know," Wanda replied, her voice quiet and much more echoed than before. "I love you too, Clary."

With that, Wanda's figure disappeared, leaving Clarice alone, in the car, arms extended around empty air.

Suddenly, her cellphone screamed at her from her coat pocket. Clarice jumped and fumbled into her coat for her phone. When she found it, she pressed the "talk" button, and placed it against her ear, confused. "Hello?"

"Yes, hello, is this Ms. Stoker?" a deep, male voice asked her.

"Yes, this is she," Clarice replied. "To whom am I speaking?"

"This is Constable Nathan James," the officer said. "We tried to reach you at your home, but you were not there. Do you have time to answer a few questions?"

"Um, I suppose so," Clarice frowned, eyebrows furrowed.

"Good," she could hear the rustling of papers in the background. "You are a psychologist, am I right?" Clarice affirmed. "Is a Mr. Cicero Imperial a client of yours?" Clarice affirmed, thinking of the conversation which must have transpired between Cicero and the person who needed the information of his "last name".

("Name?" "Cicero" "Last name?" "…What?" "Your family name" "…Dark Brotherhood?" "…Is that all one word?" "Um, no?" "Could you spell it?" "D-A-R-K space B-R-O-T-H-E-R-H-O-O-D." "…Are you being serious?" "You asked me my family name. That's my family." "I mean the family that you are from." "Oh! Well, I'm an Imperial, and-" "Okay! That'll do.")

"Is Mr. Imperial prone to psychotic breakdowns and violent episodes?" the officer asked.

"Um, not really," Clarice said, frowning. "He's a little crazy, but nothing out of control."

"Did he give you the cut on your neck?" the officer asked.

"What is all this about?" Clarice asked, becoming defensive of her little jester.

"Well, we have reason to believe that he murdered Wanda King," the officer said. "We have a warrant to search his house, and for his arrest. We are going over there this evening, and if we find plausible grounds for his arrest, we will perform such an arrest."

Clarice paled, eyes wide. "What's your proof?"

"Well, besides the fact that the slip of paper found in Wanda King's hand was his address," the officer explained. "And the murder weapon found has his fingerprints on them, and after we discovered this, it went missing. Furthermore, when we went to question him, he was aggressive in not letting any officers into his apartment, and when asked if he knew Wanda King or heard anything, he was quite passionate that she was not his doing, he needed to take care of his mother, and that the officers needed to go away."

Wanda's hands shook slightly as she held the phone. Suddenly, she realised that time was incredibly limited. She needed to get him home tonight, before the police went to pay him a visit, or the consequences could be incredibly drastic. Immediately, she turned on her car and zipped around, speeding back to the highway to head back to Cicero's house.

"I'm sorry, officer, I'm a bit busy right now," Clarice told him. "But I know that Cicero is a good man. He's a little strange, but he can be kind and sweet, and I don't think he would kill anyone without reason." (like his Mother telling him to, she thought) "I can vouch for that. You can put that on record."

The officer paused for a moment, before sighing. "Alright, Ms. Stoker. Thank you for your time."

She hung up her phone and threw it onto the passenger seat. "Yeah. Time." She said to herself. "Something I wish I had more of."


	13. Chapter 13

She pressed the button at the bottom of the stairs repetitively. Panic began to set in when she realised that she wasn't being answered. She took a step away from the entrance, and looked up to his floor, only to see the curtains closed to his room. She knew how much he loved to let the light in when it was morning, since the darkness frightened him, due to the fact that it reminded him of solitude. Why wasn't he answering the buzzing of the button? He could definitely hear her from the Night Mother's room, and he couldn't possibly be angry enough with her to refuse her entry anymore. Something was wrong.

Again, panic continued to overwhelm her. Frustrated, she slammed her fingertip onto the button, buzzing his room over and over again. She pressed her face against the window of the door, looking into the apartment. She then began to pound on the door, hoping someone would hear her.

The person who stood behind the desk saw her frustration and heard her incessant pounding. She moved away from the desk and towards the door. She pushed it open slightly and poked her head out.

"Can I help you?" the receptionist said.

"Yes, I'm a psychologist, a client of mine lives here, and he just called me in a fit of panic," Clarice lied. "I need to go see him immediately, but he isn't answering."

"Should I call someone?" the receptionist asked, worried.

"No!" Clarice exclaimed. "Please don't. I need to handle this myself."

With that, the receptionist held the door open for her, and allowed her to enter into the apartment building. She ran to the elevator, and jammed her finger onto the button again, calling the elevator in panic. Eventually, it came, and she rushed past the people who were exiting the elevator. She vigorously pressed the buttons which took her to where she needed to go. She tapped her foot quickly, apprehension filling her as the suspense of the slow-moving elevator seemed to taunt her.

Eventually, the elevator came to an abrupt stop, and before the doors were fully opened, she dove out of the elevator, and bolted to the end of the hallway, where Cicero's door had been. The black and yellow lanterns regarded her with sceptical eyes, and the doors like laughing mouths, mocked her as she ran, as though assuring her that she was powerless, and there were only bad things waiting for her when she reached the door.

Soon, she did reach the door in question and came to an abrupt stop, confused, considering that the door had been slightly ajar. She peered into the room, finding an overwhelming amount of darkness impairing her vision for seeing within the apartment. Carefully, cautiously, she placed her hand against the door, and pushed it open slowly. The room smelt of death and blood and burnt-out candles. Her heart was racing as she examined the inside of the room. She couldn't see anything, but she could hear a shaking breath coming from inside the Night Mother's chamber.

Slowly, she took gradual steps into the apartment, keeping her eyes on everything, making sure to examine everything around her. She could not see anything particularly out of order, but the feelings coming from the room made her feel incredibly uncomfortable and unsure of the situation. She followed the sound of the shaking breath into the bedroom which had been converted into a sanctuary for the Night Mother. This door was also ajar, but mostly closed. Like she had with the door to the apartment, she slowly pushed it open and examined inside.

All of the candles around the Night Mother's body were blown out, and there was wax everywhere. The ceremonial oils used for keeping the Mother moisturised were strewn across the floor, most of them empty and coating the walls and floor in several places. She slowly reached over to the light switch on the wall and flicked it. A small lamp in the corner flicked on, revealing a horrifying sight.

Mixed with the oil covering the walls and spilt upon the floor, were sprays and small pools of blood. The Night Mother's coffin was closed and locked, but was still tainted by small amounts of blood and oil and spilled wax. Lying in front of the pedestal on which the Night Mother's coffin sat, was a very frail, fragile, and bloody Cicero. Clarice gasped and ran to him, kneeling down in front of him. He was not coherent, and had a massive wound in his side, which had been gushing blood. Clarice's hands shook violently as she tried to examine him, getting covered in his blood herself.

"Clarice," he said, his voice quiet and shaking. "Ci-Cicero was hoping you would c-come back…"

"Don't talk, Cicero," Clarice insisted, tears welling in her eyes with the panic. "I'm so sorry I left. I should have just stayed with you."

Cicero smiled sadly, flinching from the pain. Clarice looked around the room and managed to find some bandages, probably having to do with the oiling process for the mother. They seemed like a mixture of gauze and burlap. She grabbed them and carefully positioned Cicero so she could wrap the bandages around him tightly in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

"You need to press firmly on the bandage," she told him.

"Cauterise it," Cicero said, quietly. Clarice's eyes widened and she looked to him.

"You really are insane," Clarice remarked. "There's no fire hot enough."

"Yes there is," a screeching-like voice came from behind them.

Clarice spun around, only to find the Hagraven standing there, arms crossed over her chest, grinning. She was also covered in blood, though Clarice assumed it was mostly Cicero's. She extended a single hand towards Clarice, and her palm slowly filled with fire, though it seemed not to burn her. The fire licked and curled around her fingers, as though teasing her, tempting her, but not burning her.

"This is how it is going to work," the Hagraven said, glancing down into the flames. "I'll save your beloved little jester. I have more than fire to cauterise the wound."

With that, she reached into a satchel tied around her waist, and pulled a large vial from the bag. It had a long mouth and a wide base with what looked like strips of leather wrapped around the glass. It was corked tightly, but still the scent of something sweet and incredibly enticing wafted from the bottle. It seemed to be filled with a bright, red liquid that seemed unnatural to anything Clarice had ever been introduced to. The Hagraven swirled the contents around the bottle, grinning.

"This is a potion of Extreme Healing," the Hagraven told her. "It would heal Cicero almost fully immediately. But I'm not willing to just hand this over."

Clarice narrowed her eyes at the Hagraven, pulling Cicero's delicate body close to her to hold him gently in her lap. He grasped her shirt and clung tightly to her, heaving himself upwards so he could cough. A large wad of blood and phlegm shot out of his mouth and fell onto the floor. Clarice felt her bottom lip quiver slightly. She knew perfectly well that if she didn't agree to whatever it was the Hagraven was demanding, her beloved madman would most definitely die. She couldn't bring him to the hospital, because then the police officers would have direct access into Cicero's house, and would be able to search it without interference – imagine how they would react when finding an oiled corpse in an iron maiden sitting on a pedestal. He would be arrested for sure. To him, that would be worse than death.

"What do you want," Clarice said, holding him close to her, not caring about the blood drenching her clothes.

"Well, it's simple, really," she told him. "I just want the Night Mother."

"You can't have her!" Cicero said, sitting up slightly. "Cicero won't let you!" He then whimpered, coughed again, and slowly lied back down. Clarice told him to hush, before holding him tightly again.

"You see, if the Night Mother ordered my death, then why should I allow her to live in my world, where so many people are dying because it's what she has ordered?" she insisted.

"You don't understand!" Cicero shouted. "The Night Mother listens to her children's plea, and tells us to do what they ask. It is not her who commands the deaths!"

"Then without the middle man, how can the Brotherhood performs the acts?" the Hagraven grinned.

"Things continued running even without the Mother," Cicero told the Hagraven. "During the time of solitude, when the Brotherhood waited for the Night Mother, they strayed from the Tenants and performed kills purely for money, instead of for what had been told to us from the Mother. Things would continue just as they had, Hagraven. With or without the Mother."

"_The Staff, Listener_," Clarice heard the Mother's voice. "_Get her to grab the staff_."

Clarice turned her head slowly to the corner of the room where the enchanted stick stood against the wall, waiting to be touched again. She knew perfectly well what the Night Mother was suggesting. If she was to get the staff into the hands of the Magicka-enriched Hagraven, and perhaps got her to cast it, then it would be in the hands of the Dread Lord.

She heard Cicero choke on his own blood.

"Okay, okay," Clarice said. "Let's just figure this out. How about, you give me that potion, and I'll give you the Night Mother, and that staff in the corner of the room."

"_Ooo, subtle_," she heard the Night Mother remark.

The Hagraven's beady, black eyes shifted to the corner of the room, where the stick stood, waiting. She narrowed her black eyes and tilted her head slightly, examining it.

"What does it do?" the Hagraven asked.

"_Tell her it summons a Daedra_," the Night Mother told her. "_Like the Sanguine Rose, but given to Cicero by Sithis himself._"

"It summons a Daedra," Clarice explained. "Like the Sanguine Rose. It was given to Cicero by Sithis himself as a gift for being such a dedicated Keeper to the Mother for so long. It was with him when he was teleported here, but he doesn't have enough Magicka to use it. I'm sure an advanced magical being such as yourself can easily wield the artefact enough to use its advanced magic."

"_Flattery_," the Night Mother grinned. "_I knew I liked you for a reason_."

"The Sanguine Rose," the Hagraven said, before sneering at the staff. "I always wanted that staff. The only Daedric Artefacts on that stupid Dragonborn were Boethiah's Ebony Mail and that silly Skeleton Key. I'm not much of a lock-picker myself – I prefer to break and enter." She kept her gaze tightly fastened to the staff. "But that Sanguine Rose… What power. Tear an incredibly potent being from the depths of Oblivion… To control such a being for one's own purposes… How could I refuse such magic?"

The Hagraven prepared herself to lunge forward towards the artifact. Clarice immediately thrust her hands upwards to stop the motion, forcing the Hagraven to pause and turn her beady, glaring eyes down to Clarice, as though she was some insignificant thing sitting in the way of her goal. Clarice knew very well how easily she could be squashed by the much more powerful entity standing before her, towering over her.

"Wait," she insisted. "Please, just give me the potion first."

The Hagraven scowled at the petty request. She glanced back up to the staff for a brief moment, before sighing and glancing to the bottle of red liquid she held in her hand, by the neck. From the much closer distance, Clarice could smell the incredibly enticing aroma escaping from beneath the cork sealing it tightly. She had to contain herself from reaching for it and taking it from the Hagraven's hands, for she knew that if she made such an attempt, she would probably be lit into flames like a dry bale of hay before she could open her mouth to protest.

"How about this," the Hagraven bartered. "You give me the staff, then I'll give you the potion, then you give me the Night Mother."

This couldn't have possibly been going better.

"Fine," Clarice said quickly. "Take the staff. Use it, if you want. Just please, once it is in your hands, give me the potion."

"No!" Cicero shouted in objection, before coughing violently. "I will not let you have the Night Mother!"

Clarice looked down to Cicero with an expression that spoke volumes about keeping his mouth shut, and to trust her because she had a plan. It took him a while to read the expression properly, but once he understood it, he sealed his mouth immediately, and pretended to pass out in her arms. She had to keep herself from grinning with pleasure at his sudden acceptance of their unspoken plan, and his own contribution to furthering it. It was all going too well, it seemed.

"Please hurry," Clarice begged. "We don't have much time. I can feel him slipping away."

"Yes, his life force is dwindling," the Hagraven frowned at the limp body of the madman. "Very well."

She then stepped over the bodies on the floor, and went to the corner of the room. She slowly wrapped her claws around the stem of the staff, and sighed heavily, feeling its power. There wasn't much life left in it. There had only been one shot with it as long as Clarice wielded it, considering her distinct lack of Magicka. But with the Hagraven's excess of the magical energy, combined with the enchantment in the staff itself, it would be easy to summon Sithis, one last time. The Hagraven lifted the staff off of the ground and held it in her hands for a long moment, relishing in its power and abilities. She then turned the staff forward to face an open area within the room.

"To summon a Daedra in this fragile, disgusting world, so young in its cultures, so advanced in its faculties, yet so broken and dying," the Hagraven said, mostly to herself. Clarice began to worry, once she truly did feel Cicero's heart slowing, losing the want to survive. "It's amazing what I could do with this staff in this world."

With that, she inhaled deeply, preparing the spell she would eventually cast. Clarice watched in excitement and anticipation as the purple light began to form and swell at the end of the staff. The Hagraven's bird-like face began to light with exhilaration at the black and purple orb expanding gradually. It was taking even the Hagraven much effort to power it, but she was relentless in her task, and dared not falter, especially before the mortals who so desperately relied on its working. Cicero opened one eye carefully to watch the portal swelling on the staff, and even he grew excited to see what was coming. Clarice stroked his hair gently to calm him.

After what felt like eons, the Hagraven allowed the portal to eject off of the staff. It swam across the room for a brief moment, before landing onto the ground, where it continued to swell and expand, until it was large enough to fit a human – or even a God. On the other side of the portal, the void released the Dread Lord himself, and he began to pour from within the pit of the portal and materialise in the form that each living entity in the room could comprehend. The Hagraven watched in awe and excitement, but once she realised that it wasn't the Daedra she had anticipated, the beam left her face, and was replaced with terror.

"Oh Gods…" the Hagraven said under her breath.

The Dread Lord laughed in amusement with the situation, glancing around the room he recognised well. Cicero's heart was racing with delight with the situation, and he wanted to lunge upwards and praise the Lord he was raised to embrace, but his current condition would not permit such an endeavour, and he was left to cower in the arms of the psychologist. He clung tightly to her, but watched the circumstance unfold with great joy.

"_Well, well, well,_" Sithis mused. "_What do we have here? A rogue Hagraven, alone in this strange world on the quest for revenge. You're a little out of place here, aren't you, Hagraven?_"

"Keep away from me," the Hagraven said, dropping the staff and filling her hand with fire. She thrust her hand forward in the direction of the psychologist and the madman. "You'll regret it!"

Sithis laughed, his skeletal form shuddering with the laughter. "_I regret nothing, Hagraven. I'm the Dread Lord. Keeper of souls, and creator of Gods. There is nothing in this world I did not intend, and nothing I cannot fix. What you have done here has merely been an… inconvenience. Easily mended_."

"I was only trying to protect those who don't have a say in their own deaths!" the Hagraven insisted, palms filled with fire. Clarice could feel the heat radiating off of her hands close to her face. She felt Cicero stir in her lap. "If you won't protect these puny mortals, then maybe you'll protect the Mother!" With that, she extended an arm to the Night Mother, still keeping one on the cowering lovers.

"No!" Cicero shouted, trying to sit up and defend his Mother. Clarice held him down.

"She wouldn't," she whispered into Cicero's ear.

The Hagraven turned her head towards Clarice. She could see the fear in the creature's eyes, and knew that her actions were based solely on the fear of losing everything she had worked hard to achieve. Clarice knew that if she was to return to Skyrim, she would be killed by the Brotherhood without a moment's contemplation. But, now, she was backed into a corner. They had rationalised her way out of any logic or reason to eliminate the Mother, and she now had a God staring her down. The Void was in her sight, and she knew that. She had nowhere to run; she could only fight.

"Fine," the Hagraven said, snarling. "I won't set you both on fire. I'll just do something worse."

With that, she reached back into the satchel, where the Potion of Extreme Healing was waiting for consumption, lifted her arm high, and threw the bottle downwards, causing it to leap out of her hand, and crash onto the floor, smashing into millions of tiny pieces. The enticing aroma lifted from the red, spilled contents of the bottle, rising to the ceiling and disappearing. The shimmering, life-saving liquid coated the floor in red, like blood pouring from the bottle, only to seep into the floorboards, and disappear from sight, leaving Clarice hopeless, with a dying madman in her arms.

"No!" Clarice screamed, trying her hardest to gather some of the liquid. It was too late, though. Too much of the contents had been lost. Slurping the liquid up with a straw would even be unsuccessful. She watched helplessly as the only thing that could save her little jester dissolved into obscurity. Her hand shook and bled slightly from the shards of glass she at which she desperately grasped. Sithis watched her, frowning from at her feeble attempts at saving another mortal's life. She felt her eyes fill with tears as she clawed at the wetness, knowing that it wouldn't do any good in its current state, but not having anything else to do rendered her useless.

Everything washed away.

Cicero watched as the liquid faded into obscurity. He felt helpless as he lay there, unable to move, in immense pain. Clarice held him so tightly. He could feel her body shake as she tried her hardest to stay strong for him. What did he do to deserve her?

Clarice stared up at the Hagraven, her eyes filled with rage, until the glint of something else in the creature's satchel caught her eye. Reaching for the thing was a long shot, and the chance of her actually being able to do something with it was even less probable. But, at that point, she had nothing to lose, and perhaps a life to gain. Her intuition took over for her, and she lunged forward, careful not to knock Cicero about, but enough to be able to wrap her fingers around the hilt of the ebony dagger as it hung from the satchel.

The Hagraven screeched with the suddenness of the movement, and attempted to back away, but it was fruitless. The human girl already had a firm grasp on the weapon, and it was hers to wield. Again, the bird-woman's hands filled with fire. There was no way any of them could escape the flames with naught but a sharp blade. Clarice slowly lifted herself into a standing position, keeping the end of the blade pointed at the Hagraven, while also carefully lying Cicero down onto the ground.

"Listen to me," Clarice said, her voice shaking almost as much as the hand in which the dagger was tightly grasped. "I don't want to fight you. I am fully aware that there is no way I could win against you. Rather, I would like to strike a bargain. You and I are both backed into a corner, here. If we move fast, maybe we could fix what seems broken beyond repair."

The Hagraven paused for a moment, eyes narrow. "I'm listening."

Clarice nodded and swallowed hard, allowing the dagger to sit loosely in her palm, as if to say that she knew she was vulnerable. "You know perfectly well that despite your efforts, the Dark Brotherhood will continue. If you ever happen to try to go home, you will be a huge target, and the fate you may be forced to suffer could be worse than anything you can imagine. What I'm offering to you, is immunity. If you recreate the portal back to Skyrim, allowing Cicero and the Night Mother to pass through and survive, then the Night Mother will tell the Listener and the Listener will tell the Brotherhood that you are immune to any attacks from them, and will survive under their radar, free from death brought on by the Brotherhood."

The Hagraven watched her, analysing the bargain in her mind. She knew that this mortal human was desperate to save the man she seemed to care for so dearly. She was perfectly aware that returning home to Tamriel was a huge risk she couldn't afford to take as long as the Mother and her Keeper were in this world. The gag had gone on long enough. It was now time to return home and resume business as usual. Perhaps this offer was the only way she could do it, without certain death waiting at her doorstep for when she comes home. She allowed the flames to dissipate within her palms. As a response to this, Clarice dropped the blade.

"Fine," the Hagraven said, before glancing backwards at the Night Mother. "Tell her that I am immune to any Dark Brotherhood attacks. Make sure that she gets the word across to her children."

"_Yes, yes, I understand_," the Night Mother sighed.

Then it was settled.

Suddenly, from the ground behind Clarice, there came a choking gurgle. Clarice spun around to find Cicero curled into the fetal position, holding his wound tightly. He had no fight left in him. He was allowing himself to slip away. How could he do that to himself? He so fondly loved his ability to fight all that stood in his way, but now he was just going to let himself go? When he was on the cusp of returning home?

"Hurry up!" Clarice said, falling to her knees beside the shaking body.

"I can't move that fast!" the Hagraven insisted, swelling balls of purple light forming in her hands. "It takes manipulation and control and extreme concentration!"

"How long is it going to take?" Clarice asked, exasperated.

"I don't know, a few minutes?" the Hagraven said, working at the orbs in her claw-like palms.

Clarice felt tears pour down her face as the anxiety of the situation overwhelmed her. "We don't have a few minutes," she said, her voice shaking. She turned to look at the skeletal figure in the corner of the room. "Sithis?" she begged, her voice feeble.

"There isn't anything I can do," Sithis said, watching them. "A portal like this is unlike anything I am able to create for living things."

Clarice's bottom lip shook violently as she gathered the small, feeble man in her arms. She held him tightly, drops of salty cyanide falling from the end of her nose onto the blood-soaked Cicero. Her whole body shook violently as she held him, looking down at him. She ran her fingers through his sweat-drenched hair, looking deeply into his eyes. Even know, she could see the light in them – the laughter. But it was so dim. So faint. Like the glint of a dying star.

"Don't go," she begged him. "Please. Cicero. Hold on."

Slowly, his dry, cracked, bloody lips stretched into a smile. It was weak and it was miserable, but it was there. His eyes slowly closed, the smile remaining on his face. "Cicero… Isn't done… Not yet…"

With that, the fragile life within him faded away, like the last bit of warmth and laughter in the whole world, drifting into obscurity, leaving behind the empty shell of a jester.


	14. Chapter 14

Clarice stared down at the lifeless body in her arms, too shocked to scream, too miserable to cry. She simply sat there, watching the body do nothing. Her body shook with the confusion of not knowing what to do, where to look, what to say. He gave up the fight just before the battle was won. How long had he been suffering before she got there?

The Hagraven stared at the body, her claws still positioned to work the portal she was trying so hard to achieve. Now, sadly, it seemed pointless. The air within the room filled with darkness as the Night Mother stared down at her beloved Keeper's corpse. Both women who considered Cicero the only man in the world who mattered more than anything sat there, staring at the motionless body in complete disbelief.

"_Sithis_," the Night Mother said, her voice low. "_Please. Don't let him go_."

"_I've said this before_," Sithis said. "_A single soul in a pool of trillions. It's more difficult than it sounds. And by the time I find his soul, his body may have lost all warmth, rendering it irreplaceable._"

"You can't just give up like that!" Clarice said, looking to the skeleton in the room. "You need to try. I can't just let him go."

"_I need to be here for when the portal is made_," Sithis remarked. Even the Dread Lord was becoming riled with the situation, mainly because of his "wife's" exasperation. "_You may not be able to properly transport yourself without my guidance back to Tamriel. Otherwise, you could end up in Oblivion, or somewhere else entirely_."

"_I'm not leaving here without him!_" he Night Mother shouted. The darkness in the room rippled with her infuriation.

The Hagraven bent over the swelling portal, pouring all of her energy into the bulging, purple and black light. Sithis, meanwhile, stood by, manipulating its destination. The skeleton head glanced few times towards the Night Mother, before looking back to the Portal. Clarice held the body tightly, trying to keep it warm while it waited for its soul.

"_You've never cared this much about a Keeper before,_" Sithis said. "_Is it because of your guilt from making him go insane?_" he sighed and slowly shook the skeleton head. "_If I don't find him within five minutes, I'm coming back and finishing that portal_."

"_Five minutes_?!" Clarice shouted, widening her eyes. "That can't be enough time!"

"_It's all the time I'm giving you_." Sithis said, before disappearing in a fast-forming portal.

Clarice felt completely helpless, then. All she could do, was tightly hold the body in her arms. She felt a glimpse of hope within herself as she ran her fingers through Cicero's red, red hair. Something within her reminded her that this wasn't the end of him. She desperately watched the portal's formation, knowing now that it would take a bit longer to form it now that there wasn't help in guiding its destination.

It took far too long for anything to happen again. The sound of breathing, paired with the swirling sound of the forming portal, seemed to cut into the thick tension which was otherwise going to drown Clarice. She longed to hear the laughter of her beloved Cicero. She felt so absent without him, like something crucial had been torn from her body, such as her entire rib cage, and thrown far out of her reach, just after the thrower told her that she had a very slim chance of ever getting it back, and even though there was a chance, she felt as though it was too far out of her reach to ever really retrieve it. She was still in far too much agony to show any true emotion.

A part of her felt as though this was her fault. Sure, she didn't necessarily have a direct hand in the death of her beloved Cicero, but she felt responsible for it. She was his Listener. He insisted on this only the second time he had ever set foot within her office. She looked back to the times when he did embark into her office. The time when his hands were covered in oil and wax and she had been so terrified of him. The time when he seemed to lose himself in his own mind, and she was afraid of losing him forever. The time when they made love… She was not only his Listener, because, sure, she did listen to him. But she also cared about him so much. She was his Keeper, as well. She kept him sane and sound. She held him so closely, not only physically, but in all other senses as well. She was the only one there for him when he truly needed someone. She was his Listener and definitely his Keeper – and she failed so miserably at both those things.

"_Listener,_" she heard the Night Mother's voice in her head. "_Someone's coming_."

"No," she said to herself. "Not yet."

The Hagraven turned her head to look at Clarice, frowning. "Is everything okay?"

Clarice gently laid Cicero's body onto the floor, sticky with his own blood, before rising onto her shaking legs. She carefully made her way towards the curtained window, afraid to look outside and see what she was wishing wouldn't be there. She pulled back the white drapes and inserted her fingers between the Venetian curtains before prying them apart carefully. Her eyes were blinded for a moment from the sudden intrusion of light, but once they adjusted, she looked down to the parking lot below, finding exactly what she was dreading – a pair of cop cars, each containing two police officers. It was too soon. She wasn't ready.

"We don't have much time," she said, before looking to her wristwatch. Sithis had said five minutes, and three had passed. In two minutes, he would be back with or without the soul of her madman. She looked upwards to the Hagraven, finding a still-opaque and too-small purple orb trapped within her claws. It was not forming fast enough.

"It took me years to perfect this portal," the Hagraven told her, looking back to the orb between her hands. "After a friend of mine, and fellow Hagraven, was killed by the Dark Brotherhood, I began working on it. I spent so long not exerting myself by any means, saving my Magicka so I could quickly form the portal on demand. When it was finally ready, I wrote all of it down to be certain, and then made a point of making a great many noises, flashing lights in the night, and other disturbances that the nearby village became weary of. Just as planned, the blacksmith spoke up, and performed the Black Sacrament in order to summon an assassin to try to kill me. Hagravens are malevolent beings by nature, and enjoy exacting revenge whenever we can. The death of that fresh Black Hand just wasn't enough, and I decided to employ the spell on which I had desperately worked for so long. It took a while to break into the sanctuary, but far too easy to find the back entrance, when I realised the black door would not yield to me. When I went in, I unleashed all the malevolence within me on all of those Black Hands. When I found the Night Mother, it seemed too perfect. I didn't know he was there… I didn't know the Keeper travelled with her."

"Why are you telling me this?" Clarice asked, watching the Hagraven.

"So if all this fails," the Hagraven said. "You know the real story, and how sorry I am. I didn't intend on all of this. One mistake led to another… This is the apex of a malicious plan gone horribly wrong. I'm so sorry."

Just as the confession concluded, there was a dramatic shift in the atmosphere. In the corner of the room, a cloud of darkness swelled until the embodiment of darkness Himself manifested in his comprehensible form. In his skeletal arms, Sithis held what looked like a wisp of white smoke, blue, opaque tendrils pulsing and swimming around it as though reaching in vain attempts to grasp onto something concrete. Clarice watched in awe as he held it tightly to keep it from swimming away.

Clarice instinctively stepped aside, allowing Sithis access to the corpse lying in his own blood on the floor. Sithis looked to it, then back to the white figure in his arms. It seemed formless, but Clarice knew full well what it was. Her heart was racing as she told herself that she would have her beloved Cicero back to her. For a moment, all her fears seemed superfluous, frivolous and unsuccessful in her attempts to deter her from hope. But when she looked to Sithis's skeletal face and found his expression (there wasn't really an expression, but she could feel his emotion within her) grave, she began to worry again.

"_I'm not guaranteeing you this will work, mortal_," Sithis told her. "_It didn't take me long to find the soul, but the chances of it re-adhering to the body are slim. Sometimes, the body is so damaged, that it will reject the soul outright, refusing re-entry. This may very well happen here. His body has lost so much blood, and without a potion or alchemy reagent from my world, there may be nothing to rebuild him and give him back his lost blood_."

"But there's no sense in not trying, right?" Clarice said, her voice shaking. She wiped more tears from her eyes. She needed to be strong.

Sithis looked back down to the soul solemnly, not replying. Clarice's heart fell as she looked back down to the corpse on the floor. Was he still gone from her, despite all her efforts? She heard a buzzing coming from the speaker on the door. That would be the police with their warrant. Such a silly piece of paper held so much weight – enough to tear this whole endeavour to shambles. She didn't have much time.

"Wait," the Hagraven stopped them. "In my satchel, I have something that might help. I was going to save it for myself if I needed it, but it is much needed elsewhere."

Clarice practically dove to the Hagraven's satchel hanging at her waist, and plunged her hand into it. After a while of shuffling, she managed to produce another vial. It was much smaller than the first one, and less round. She weighed it in her hands for a moment, before displaying it to the Hagraven, who immediately nodded.

"It's a potion of regenerating health," the Hagraven explained. "It isn't as potent as the Extreme Healing potion, but it will allow his body to regenerate much faster once his soul is within it. I didn't bother giving it to you before, since it wouldn't have had an effect – he was too wounded."

"_It may not be enough_," Sithis said.

"Stop being so damned pessimistic!" Clarice exclaimed. "Whatever it does, it's worth a try. Now put my Cicero's soul back into his body!"

Sithis looked to her for a moment, supressing the urge to remind her that he could be holding her soul in his hands as easily as snapping his fingers, but decided not to bother. Obviously, she was in distress, and now was the mortal's moment for "freaking out", as they called it. He hovered over to the dead body lying upon the floor, holding the soul above it for a long moment. He loved holding a soul over a dead body. Simply witnessing a dead body reminded him of his worth in the world as the Void. He felt the soul, now that it was close to its host body, vibrate and will itself towards it, aching to be replaced in the entity in which it belonged. He couldn't deny it any longer.

Clarice fell next to the body, and rolled him over so he was laying on his back, with his arms out on either side of him. His eyes were closed, keeping her from seeing the light they held, and his face betrayed so much age that she could hardly recognise him. She uncorked the bottle, inhaling the sweet smell of the red contents. It was not as enticing as the earlier potion, but she knew that now was the moment when it was desperately required, and nothing smelt sweeter.

Gently, the Dread Lord held the soul above the body. Slowly, he removed his arms from holding it, but the soul did not simply drop into the body like Clarice expected. Rather, it hovered there for a long moment, unmoving, simply pulsating. The tendrils which sprouted from it, like spuds on a potato, grasped desperately around itself, until finally touching the skin of the dead man. Without hesitation, many other tendrils jutted out from the wisp of white to touch the body below it. They seemed to adhere to the skin, even beneath his clothing, where they held on tightly. Gradually, they began to pull the main bulk of the soul downwards onto the body. Eventually, the soul sank into Cicero's skin until it completely disappeared from sight. There seemed to be a sudden darkness in the room as the light the soul emitted faded away and descended, with the soul, into Cicero.

Clarice stood by, holding the uncorked potion tightly in her hand, prepared at a moment's notice to pour its contents down Cicero's throat. Her eyes shifted upwards to look at the Dread Lord, who simply gave her an encouraging nod. She looked back down to the body, waiting in painful anticipation for any sign that the soul adhered to the body.

Inside, the soul sat, waiting, patiently, to fully understand what must be done. It seemed to scan the body in which it waited to see if it really was the body the soul knew. Upon his skin sat a great many scars, some as thin as paper, some thick and brutal, some the size of a werewolf's bite. The red, red hair which dappled his body was incredibly familiar. The heart, which also knew the sight of scars, sat, unmoving, in the dead ribcage. There, it would begin its quest. A tendril extended from the pit of the soul, and ventured, through the arteries and branching veins, to the motionless pump. It wrapped itself around the heart in a warm embrace, willing it to move. With some slight stimulation, the heart performed a single beat. The tendril squeezed the organ tightly, willing another beat. There was a distinct lack of blood within the body, which would prove to be an issue, but the few pumps the soul managed to activate allowed the remaining life force to shift through the otherwise still veins. The tendril squeezed the heart so tightly, until it eventually seemed to meld with it, and dissolve into it, activating it fully.

Outside, Clarice rested her head upon Cicero's chest, listening desperately for any sign of life. Soon, to her starving ears' delight, she heard a very faint, single thump. Even Sithis perked up at the sound, watching closely. Clarice pressed her ear firmly against his chest, and listened so desperately. If she listened any closer, she would probably break a rib. To her delight, she heard another thump. She took that as a sign to lift Cicero's head, tilt it backwards, and gently pour the contents of the bottle down his throat.

Inside, another tendril reached downwards to Cicero's stomach. With the heart now pumping, slowly and feebly, but pumping nonetheless, the blood coursed around the stomach, allowing the tendril to easily activate it. Just as the stomach produced a small gurgle in awakening, a red liquid flushed downwards, and drowned the tendril in red potion. The stomach's activation allowed for the reactivation of other digestive organs, which quickly went to work at recognizing, understanding, and utilising the potion which entered them. The tendrils willed the activation of the skin, to which the digestive system was already sending nutrients from the potion. The potion provided a sudden boost to the soul's tendrils, allowing them to work faster and harder to achieve the ultimate goal of reconstruction and regeneration. Tendrils, with the aid of the rebuilding system, began to stitch together broken organs and, eventually, broken skin.

Outside, the stab wound seemed to stitch together as branches of skin reached out to their neighbours across the way, and pulled the two sides of the wound together, hemming it tightly. Clarice's eyes blurred with tears as she watched the wound heal.

Inside, after the wound was healed and many organs activated, including the slight stimulation of the lungs, a few tendrils ventured to the upmost peak of the body – the brain. There, areas were already being activated, which controlled certain parts of the body that had come back to life. However, cognition was still indiscernible. Still with the aid of the potion, the tendrils worked hard to activate the frontal lobe, which stimulated the motion and emotion control, the hippocampus, which governed memories (which came flying back to the body), the cerebellum which was important to attention and even aspects of consciousness, and other parts of the brain which lied otherwise dormant. Sparks began to fly through the brain, as neurons were reactivated, sending signals throughout the body that the entity was coming back to life, so prepare for rebirth.

He was alive.

Outside, Cicero jumped awake with a gasp of fresh air. Clarice couldn't contain herself any longer, and choked on a sob while leaping forward and wrapping her arms around him. Cicero was taken aback with the suddenness of the motion, but smiled slowly, and wrapped his arms around her in return. He felt home again, yet he knew he was still so far from home.

"The portal is almost ready," the Hagraven remarked, apparently not fully aware of what had just happened (though she devoted all of her time to the portal in front of her). "Is everything okay back there?"

Sithis headed towards the Hagraven, before extending his hand to the portal, and exerting his own energy into it. Suddenly, with the motion, the portal within the Hagraven's hands swelled, formed into a concrete, swirling orb of masses of purple, black, and white light, and ejected off of her hands, as though giving it the powerful boost it required. Beside the Night Mother, there formed what looked like a black hole, a concave version of the portal Clarice had been so used to seeing. Cicero watched it, his eyes shining brightly.

"Home," he said, lowly.

"Yeah," the Hagraven said, taking a step towards it, smiling brightly. "Home."

"_Ah, ah, ah_," Sithis said, stopping the Hagraven. "_I don't think that can be allowed, Hagraven_."

"What?" the Hagraven said, her expression shifting to horror. She looked to Clarice. "But she told me I have immunity!"

"_Immunity from the Dark Brotherhood,_" Sithis corrected her. "_Not from me. Besides, I believe I deserve your soul after all you have put me through. Consider it… Collateral damage_."

"No," the Hagraven pleaded. "No! You can't do this! Human!" the Hagraven looked to Clarice desperately. "Help me! Please, help me!"

Clarice watched, dumbstruck, in utter awe as sudden darkness seemed to consume the Hagraven. She heard a screeching scream emit from the complete darkness that covered the Hagraven's body. Eventually, the scream was choked off, and abruptly ended. There wasn't even a gurgling finish – it simply… stopped. Sithis stood beside the void, watching it with greedy eyes (or lack thereof). The darkness dissipated into nothingness. Sithis then turned his head to look at the pair of mortals.

"_As for you two_," he said, grinning. "_Take your Mother home_."

With that, the Dread Lord disappeared, leaving Cicero, Clarice, and the Night Mother alone with the gaping mouth of the portal back to Tamriel. Clarice sighed with the relief of the absence of the Dread Lord, but turned her head to look at Cicero. He nodded, and walked to the Night Mother's coffin. There, he pressed his body against it, in order to push it towards the portal. It seemed to float gently towards the portal, but stopped before entering it. He then looked to Clarice.

Suddenly, there came a loud pounding at the door to Cicero's apartment. Clarice gasped and turned her head towards the door. She heard the police officers on the other side demand entrance. She looked back to Cicero, who stood patiently at the mouth of the portal.

"C'mon, Clarice!" Cicero urged here. "We need to go!"

Clarice looked to him and smiled. "I can't."

Cicero furrowed his brow and walked to her, his expression urgent. "What are you talking about? You're Cicero's Listener! I need you back home with me!"

"Your real Listener is waiting there for you," Clarice smiled. "I have a life here."

"You could have a life with Cicero!" Cicero insisted.

Clarice's eyes flooded with tears, until they spilled relentlessly down her face. Oh, God, how she would miss her beloved Cicero.

"I can't," she said, her voice shaking. "I have clients here. Bills to pay, food to eat, family."

"Doesn't sound like much of a life to me," Cicero said. "Please come with me. You will have a better life with Cicero."

"Cicero, please," she said. A single sob escaped her lips. How was she going to survive without him? She cared about him so much. She loved him.

Cicero's face reddened. His eyes glistened with tears filling them. It felt as though she knew him better than anyone else, even though he had only known him for a few weeks. She gained him, then lost him, and brought him back. She was his Listener, and she listened to him. She was his Keeper, and she kept him. Now, it was time for him to return to where he belonged. She needed to let him go.

He thrust his finger forward, pointing to her. A tear fell from his eye as he seemed to be filled with a sudden, passionate rage.

"No," he said to her. "This is not ending here. I _refuse_ to let this end here."

The pounding on the door was incessant. It sounded like the door was breaking, giving away under the constant pressure of the men on the other side.

"You need to go," Clarice said, her voice shaking as she sobbed.

Cicero glanced back to the portal for a moment, before looking back to her. He knew she was right. He needed to go, but he refused to leave without her.

"Listen to me," he said, taking her shoulders in his hands, and holding her tightly there. "I want you to say your goodbyes. Write some letters, make some phone calls, write a will. Then, I want you to take all your money, all your savings, except what you need to survive for the next little while, and turn it into gold." He looked deeply into her eyes. She had never seen him so intense, even when he was about to kill her. He was filled with so much passion for her, and she felt it in every fiber of her being. "I'm coming back for you," he promised. "I am not letting this end here. I _refuse_ to let this end here!"

His voice shook as he held back his own sobs, but Clarice allowed hers to flow freely. He took her into a tight, passionate embrace. He held her so tightly, sniffing to hold back his pain, on her shoulder. He was not good with goodbyes. He parted from her, stared into her eyes for a long while, before closing his eyes and leaning forward. She felt his lips, so soft and gentle, press against hers. The kiss was incredibly intense, but so warm and passionate that it was far too perfect to ever end. Unfortunately, the police officers finally broke through the door to his apartment, cutting their passion short.

Clarice forced herself away from him. He looked to her for a short moment, though it felt like ages, before forcing himself to turn away from her, and head back towards the portal where his Mother waited. He looked back to her for a short moment, before offering a sad, though optimistic smile, and pushing the floating coffin, which had never touched the ground, back through the portal. Clarice watched as the two disappeared, and the portal closed its mouth.

Just as the portal disappeared, the police forced themselves through the door to the Night Mother's chamber.

"In here!" an officer yelled.

Another officer entered into the room, finding Dr. Clarice Stoker standing alone in the middle of a room. Both the she and room were covered in blood, oil, and the crust of wax. Her eyes were streaming with tears as she stood there alone, surrounded by dishevelment, but no life forms.

"Look around!" the officer yelled.

"Oh, you're not going to find him," Clarice said, her voice almost inaudible.

"Why not?" the officer demanded, as others began to look around the room. "Where is he?"

She smiled miserably. "He went home."


	15. Epilogue

**One Year Later**

Dr. Clarice Stoker sat alone in her office behind her desk, facing the bulk of the office. She examined the sofa on one side of the room, the chair in which she sat, the carpet, the pictures on the walls, the small cut in the drywall where an ebony dagger had been thrown.

One year ago, a mystery man had appeared into her world. He was completely insane, she knew that, and had a strange obsession with his mother. But when he disappeared, she was left alone. Alone, with silence, and solitude. So alone.

While the man was there, she had lost her best friend, her purpose in life, and someone she knew she loved. She was so in love. It was unlike anything she had ever felt, when he was there. She felt carefree, alive, passionate, in love. While he existed in her world, the rest of the world did not. Nothing mattered. But, then, he left her. And she chose to stay back and live as she knew she needed to in this world.

She was not sure why, but once the police officers decided to let her go because she knew absolutely nothing of the madman's whereabouts, she went to her local bank, withdrew all of her money, visited the local pawn shop, and changed all of her money into cold coins. She was left with so many golden coins. Then, she waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And for so long, nothing came. After about a month of complete solitude and silence, she decided that it was in her best interest to go back to what she knew how to do. She called all of her clients, and informed her that she was no longer recovering from her "devastating injury", and was accepting appointments again. She had written a will, which she kept in a desk at home, waiting for a reason to exist. Immediately, she was hit with a sudden influx of patients desperately needing her ear. Again, she rediscovered the reason she lived in this world, and not another one.

An entire year passed, and life resumed as it had. She felt so alone in this world, surrounded by all these people who wanted nothing more than to speak. She was their Listener – she wasn't just ihis/i Listener. She was everyone's Listener, but only his Keeper. But now, he was gone, and she had nothing to Keep.

She stared at the office in front of her with such dismay. She hated this place. She hated this whole world. It was so mute without him. There was no colour. Everything was black and white and blank.

She lifted herself from her desk, and headed to the depths of it. The room swallowed her whole when she stood in it, and she felt so small, so insignificant, so alone. She took her coat from the coat rack on the wall, and pulled it on, before leaving her office. She left her office door wide open.

She drove to her home, and paused at the doorway, looking around her dark, empty house. Despite the bright colours that governed her walls, everything seemed so ashen, mute, dull. She embarked into her bedroom where she fished through a small bedside table's drawer. There, she retrieved a bag full of golden coins. She examined it for a long moment, the moonlight pouring through the window glinting against the shimmering coins. She brought the bag back downstairs with her, and left her house. She left her front door wide open.

She drove to the expensive end of town, alone with her bag of coins. She pulled into the parking lot of a massive apartment complex, holding a single key in her hand. This particular key was the only thing she managed to save when she was forced out of the apartment by the police officers who thought she was an insane murderer. She glanced to the bag of coins sitting in her passenger seat. They glinted in the moonlight. She reached to them, grabbed them, and walked out of the car. She left her car door wide open.

She used a card hanging from the key-ring to get into the apartment building. She headed to the elevators, and took them to the floor she knew she needed to see. Once the doors opened revealing the hallway she recognized so well, her heart skipped. She held the bag of coins tightly to her side as she walked out of the elevator, and headed down the hallway. She saw the room at the end of the hallway, its door closed. She stood in front of it for a long while, watching it as though expecting it to change somehow. She knew, however, that she needed to be the first one to move. She slipped the key its opposite – the keyhole – and slowly pushed the door open. She listened to the room for a short moment. When she realised she was still alone, she entered the dark room. She left the door wide open.

She turned and entered into the room which was meant to be the master bedroom. She stood in the threshold of the door for a long moment, examining the inside. She reached to the switch on the wall beside her, and flicked it on. A small lamp in the corner of the room switched on, lighting the vast expanse of emptiness. It still smelt of ceremonial oils. She walked into the room, and left the door wide open behind her.

Her heeled shoes clicked upon the hardwood floor, sending echoing clicks bouncing off the walls and returning their sound to her. She approached the patio doors which lead onto a small balcony. These doors had been behind the Night Mother's coffin, so she hadn't known of their existence. She thought they were perfect, however. She slid open the door, and stood onto the balcony. She left the sliding door wide open.

She stood against the railing, and looked down to the world below. The balcony overlooked the front of the building. She looked directly down and saw the lawn below. It seemed so far, yet so close. The grass looked soft, but she knew it was much harder if she was to be falling from the floor on which she stood. She frowned down at the grass sadly. It was so intriguing.

Suddenly, behind her, she heard the sound of something materialise in the room. She hadn't heard such a sound in a long, long time. The swirling, whooshing sound echoed within the room, and reached her ears, as though to feed a craving that had almost taken over her. She closed her eyes slowly, before carefully turning around to face the massive, purple and black orb which was swelling and forming in the bedroom.

After a few moments of construction, the portal stood, tall and magnificent, in the very centre of the room. In any other circumstance, it would have been incredibly ominous, as a massive pulsating globe, sending swirling streams of light upon the walls surrounding it. However, as Clarice stood there, she could feel all of her troubles from the year that had passed simply drift away, rendering her whole and comfortable and warm again.

Exactly one year ago, she watched the man she loved disappear into his own world. Exactly one year ago, the preceding weeks seemed trivial in comparison to the solitude she experienced without him. Exactly one year ago, she was left alone and afraid in the massive world that yearned to consume her and break her down. Now, exactly one year later, she stood before the portal to the world she wanted so desperately to call home, while the figure of the man she loved emerged from its depths.

Cicero walked out from the portal, and looked around himself, fondly. Strangely, he wore the same suit he had disappeared in – a bland pair of trousers and a blouse. She was expecting his jester outfit, but it made sense that he would return to this world in the clothes in which he left it (especially in case the room he planned to return to was already occupied, or he had to go searching for her). When his amber eyes rested upon Clarice, his mouth quickly spread into a broad grin.

Without being able to hold anything back, Clarice jolted to the madman, and wrapped her arms around him tightly. He sighed and held her, resting his head against hers, smelling the familiar scent of her hair. She felt whole again, like the massive chunk of her that had been lifted from her body, was removed and healed almost immediately – like she used a Potion of Health.

"What took you so long," she said, into his shoulder.

"Well, first Cicero and Nazir went to look for the Hagraven's house," Cicero explained. As he spoke, his voice brought Clarice back into the world she missed so much. Especially when he referred to himself in the third person. He was her home, and he was back. "Then we needed to take it to Babette so she could try to recreate it. And Cicero and the Unchild spent so, so long on just trying to find out how to get it to work! And a few days ago, we finally figured it out. Then it took someone to activate it, and neither the Unchild nor Cicero knew how! So Cicero and Nazir, since Nazir can get anyone to do what he wants with a single star, went out to the Mage's College in Winterhold, and-"

Suddenly, she cut him off by parting from him, and pressing her lips firmly against his. He was taken aback for a moment, but gradually relaxed into it, and sighed with the relief. Both of them felt a craving they couldn't quench subside and ease them into harmonious satisfaction.

"But we don't have long," Cicero remarked. "The Portal will close soon."

Clarice nodded. She looked past Cicero to face the dark mouth of the portal. Exactly one year ago, she watched the man she loved disappear into this dark void to take him home. Now, he would disappear again, but she was going with him, to the ends of the world and beyond.

Cicero tightly held Clarice's hand before looking to her, and smiling confidently. She glanced back to him, and nodded, before taking careful steps towards the gaping mouth of the portal. The thick gravity the portal emitted pulled her limbs and played with the ruffles in her clothes, gently urging her, ushering her, into its depths. Eventually, hand in hand with the madman, the psychologist disappeared from the world she knew so well, only to enter in her new, foreign home. Behind her, she left the mouth of the portal sealed tightly.

Dr. Clarice Stoker and her beloved madman Cicero, lied, naked, tangled within each other, on the roof an abandoned tower on the edge of a large plateau surrounded by a magnificent mountain range, and thick forests. Clarice looked up to the sky above her, and sighed, smiling, watching the swirling, green and blue ribbons of light glide across the sky. Two moons, one much larger than the other, hung low in the sky, their beautiful, cavernous faces staring down at them.

"Two moons," she said. "You never told me Tamriel had two moons."

Cicero turned to look at her. "Cicero wanted you to see for yourself."

Clarice smiled and looked back up to the sky. Cicero held her tightly in his arms, banishing the cold of Skyrim from touching them. The sleeping rolls beneath them were comfortable and soft. They would continue their journey to the Dawnstar Sanctuary tomorrow, after a long journey southward to show Clarice a few of the sights. "Slow down," she had told him. "We have a whole life to see all of Skyrim." He couldn't deny her that.

She could remember Wanda urging her to go with Cicero through the portal. She wasn't sure why she hadn't… Too many loose ends in her real world. But the moment after the portal disappeared, leaving her alone with the darkness, she regretted it. She could hear Wanda scolding her. She needed to go through.

Her index finger traced down the contours of his body, touching his hair, poking every freckle gingerly. She longed to memorise him, and now she had a lifetime to do so.

"You know, psychologists often work on the basis of precedents in order to come to conclusions about patients," she told him. "But there was no amount of precedents that could prepare me for you."

Cicero turned his head to look at her, and chuckled. "If there had been precedent about poor Cicero, what do you think it would be called?"

Clarice looked back up to the night sky above her and sighed. She chuckled lightly to herself. "The Cicero phenomenon? The Psychology of the Cicero?"

"Oh, I know," Cicero remarked, looking down at her. "Cicerology."

She laughed lightly to herself, before looking back up to the sky, her eyes following the aurora borealis shifting and swimming above her, as her hand trailed up and down his body, touching him and playing with his skin and chest. "Yeah," she sighed. "Cicerology."

He looked back to the sky with her, and they watched the world go by. Clarice was so grateful to Cicero for sharing this world with her. But now, as the madman and the psychologist sat under the massive sky, the rest of the world seemed trivial. They had each other. They were both home. And that was the end of it.

There he lay. Cicero. Beneath the stars. Dr. Clarice Stoker in his warm embrace. Home, at last.

**.:THE END:.**


End file.
